


Love and Logic

by agent_florida



Series: All Too Human [5]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Adrenaline, Anal Sex, Breaking and Entering, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-13
Updated: 2011-05-21
Packaged: 2018-01-15 23:16:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 35,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1322908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agent_florida/pseuds/agent_florida
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a long time since York and Delta managed to escape from Project Freelancer, but their absence doesn't guarantee their safety. A direct sequel to 'Locks and Keys', this is the continuation of their story, one that merges the all-human alternate universe and reconciles it with canon events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One: Out of Sight...

“Did we lose ‘em?”  
  
York was slightly out of breath as he leaned back against the low retaining wall separating him from the security force which had been chasing him. His partner Delta was crouched behind a similar retaining wall across the driveway, out of the hot sun. The motion tracker he was concentrating on lit his face with a pale green light; his tongue darted out of his mouth to outline a scar on his lip, a sure sign that he was agitated. His voice, however, was calm. “They are outside the range of the scanner.”  
  
“What are we waiting for?” York asked him, making a move to stand.  
  
Delta’s green eyes flicked up from the screen, wide and worried. One glance from him was enough, after all this time, to still York in his tracks. “We are waiting,” Delta told him quietly, “on confirmation that security forces have declined the chase.”  
  
It was logical, but York was tired of waiting. As his grip tightened on his battle rifle, a cramp made its way into his thigh; he tried to keep the wince out of his face, but as time wore on, it was harder and harder to conceal his annoyance. “How long?” he gritted out, trying to ignore the pain.  
  
“I project another two minutes and fifteen seconds.” He brought a hand up to his ear, where York knew he had an earpiece. “Correction: perimeter sweep will conclude in one minute.”  
  
The warning was clearly there in his tone, and York could see his whole body was tense. They both shifted the duffels on their shoulders in unison, and York waited for the countdown from Delta. This one was silent: three fingers, two, and York took a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth before he bolted on his partner’s mark.  
  
Life was so much easier when he was running. The grounds turned into a green blur around him as he put the mansion firmly behind him, and all his superfluous thoughts were stripped away in favor of the burn in his legs. He could hear Delta breathing next to him, every exhale matching up perfectly with his own, and he marveled that even after all this time, he and his partner were still so beautifully in synch. A few hurdles and they were back in a dingier section of town, headed for a nondescript abandoned warehouse where they’d bunkered down for the past few days.  
  
York collapsed onto his cot as soon as he could see that everything was still in its place. He wanted to laugh with the exhilaration of pulling off another heist, but he only had the energy for a weak ‘hah’ and a lopsided smile. His body wasn’t as young as it used to be, and it was beginning to show.  
  
Delta returned the smile, though, and sat down next to him, relieving him of his duffel. He kept his body close to York’s as he inspected and unloaded the bag’s contents, and York haphazardly threw an arm around his waist, trying to show him how appreciative he was of the company.  
  
It was a few moments until he could get back his breath enough to sit up on the cot. Delta had arranged everything into two piles, and the one with their gear in it was substantially larger than the other. “What’d we pull?”  
  
“Two thousand dollars in cash and an envelope marked ‘classified’,” Delta informed him.  
  
York’s mind focused on the money, though. It would definitely get them through the next few weeks – they could stretch it into a month and a half if they were particularly prudent – but he had been hoping for much, much more out of this mission. “At last, we can retire and give up this life of crime.”  
  
“Though I can now correctly categorize your sarcasm,” Delta returned dryly, picking up the envelope and testing its seal with his fingertips, “I would appreciate if you would speak plainly with me.”  
  
York sighed. How could he put into words? It wasn’t just one thing that bothered him about their current lifestyle. “I’m just tired of this. The sneaking around, the petty thievery… I can’t even remember the last time I was in an honest-to-God firefight.”  
  
“Aggravated murder would draw –“  
  
“Undue attention to us.” York finished Delta’s sentence for him; they’d talked about this before. “I know. It’s just – even though we were doing the exact same thing with Project Freelancer, it’s… different, somehow, now that it’s just the two of us.”  
  
“You have told me several times that you felt capable of managing anything as long as I was by your side.” Though Delta said it in his usual professional tone, York could tell he was masking a deep sting.  
  
“And I can, it’s just…” He had to lay it all out, let everything spill that he’d been building up for weeks and months. “I’m getting stir-crazy. I’m bored whenever we’re not breaking and entering, and meanwhile you’re so busy on your computer I never have a minute to talk to you. I hate all this – all this creeping around, sticking to the shadows, hoping somebody doesn’t catch us. We used to break into government facilities – now what, we’re robbing civilian homes? For increasingly trivial amounts of money, too.” The more he talked about it, the more trapped he felt; to keep from screaming, he stood from the cot, and he knew Delta’s eyes were on him as he started pacing in their little corner of the warehouse. “I can’t even remember the last time I fired a gun…”  
  
Delta picked up on a gap in his rant to interject. “We have been refugees from Project Freelancer for the past –“  
  
“I don’t want to hear it.” Delta knew, down to the day, possibly down to the hour, how long they’d been living like this, and that was the last thing York needed to hear right now. “I’m sick of it, Dee, I’m just sick of it!”  
  
When he paced past his little cot again, though, Delta reached out to touch his hand, a cool fingertip running up to his wrist. The little motion made him stop in his tracks; he reached back for Delta without even thinking about it, and their hands laced together, just like they had so many times before. He still couldn’t bring himself to look into his partner’s face, knowing that what he’d just said could have made him upset. Delta’s voice, though, was even when he said, “You knew there would be consequences to choosing this lifestyle.”  
  
He’d known, sure, but that hadn’t made the transition any simpler, the circumstances easier to bear. “I just didn’t think it’d be this hard,” he said quietly, squeezing Delta’s hand.  
  
“Is it really so difficult?” Delta asked, tugging at him to encourage him to turn around. When York looked down at him, he could see his dirty face, his platinum blond hair matted with grime, his black uniform accentuating the weight he couldn’t have afforded to lose. More than that, though, York could see that his green eyes were still bright and clear, his mouth set in a determined line. “Your concerns seem illogical, considering the alternatives.”  
  
The alternatives were that they’d remained at Project Freelancer – or that they’d already been captured and taken back, a Recovery agent reclaiming them as property. Just thinking about it was enough to make a shiver go up York’s spine. “It’s safer like this. I know that. I just…” He sighed heavily, coming back to sit next to Delta on the cot. “I can’t help what I’m feeling.”  
  
“I am categorizing your current emotional state as frustrated, agitated, and generally unpleasant – is that accurate?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.” He brought up his other hand to cover the hand that was holding Delta’s, finding some small comfort in the physical contact. Just being close to Delta could calm him down; his logic could cool even his hottest outbursts. “I’m just having a bad day.”  
  
“I disagree,” Delta said, quirking an eyebrow. He’d picked up the expression from York, though it looked slightly out of place on his face. “Your performance during today’s mission was not out of the ordinary.”  
  
York chuckled hollowly. “That’s called professionalism. It’s not just you who can set aside his emotions on the battlefield.”  
  
“I owe you an apology, then.” He clutched onto York’s hand harder, making sure he had eye contact before he continued. The sincerity was there in his eyes, or what York could see of them before Delta uncharacteristically dropped his gaze. “If I had been able to take your current emotional state into account as a variable when calculating the risk of today’s mission, I might have chosen differently.”  
  
It took York a moment, stunned as he usually was by Delta’s too-green eyes, to realize that Delta was staring at the envelope they’d recovered today. “Still about your personal project, then.” It was slightly unfair to call what Delta was working on ‘personal’ – after all, most of the intel he’d gathered hadn’t been directly related to him. Delta was still searching for answers, though, and with enough information, York knew his partner hoped to help the other Greek-lettered agents that he’d known at Project Alpha. His own past was still shrouded in mystery, even though York himself had been instrumental in helping Delta recover his memories, and York knew the impulse that was driving Delta now was the righteous desire to  _know_. “You know, if you had told me it was one of  _those_  houses, I don’t think I’d have been so upset.”  
  
“I know you do not believe I should spend your resources on research,” Delta said, hesitating slightly as he spoke, “but you must understand…”  
  
“I do.” It was amazing, how just talking to Delta about everything had completely sapped away his anger. He couldn’t stay mad, not when he could see so clearly what he was fighting for: his and Delta’s safety, and an opportunity for his partner to grow away from the leeching influences of Project Freelancer. Trying to atone, he squeezed Delta’s hand and brought it to his lips, kissing the back of his hand gently before brushing his lips against his knuckles. “Listen, I’m sorry I got so mad. I just… thought it might distract you, so I never brought it up.”  
  
To his surprise, Delta reached up a hand and brushed the hair out of his eyes, letting his fingertips dawdle in the scar running down the left side of his face. “I am here to assist,” he reminded York. “Though I still may not be able to categorize all emotions, I would appreciate you being more forthcoming about your feelings.”  
  
“Well, here’s a start.” York smiled before he leaned over and kissed Delta’s forehead. “I’m feeling glad we pulled off this mission today.” He kissed one cheek before continuing, “I’m feeling curious about what’s in your envelope.” Then, he kissed the other cheek before pulling back and sinking into the depths of Delta’s eyes. “But more than anything, I’m feeling like you’ve been a little underappreciated today.”  
  
“A fair assessment,” was all Delta had time to say before York kissed his partner. He wanted to stay gentle, but one taste of the inside of Delta’s mouth and he’d already lost his self-control.  
  
Something in Delta seemed reluctant, though, and York pulled back. “What is it?”  
  
Delta bit his lower lip, a pointed tooth fitting perfectly into the divot of his scar, before responding. “I would prefer to continue this activity after relocating.”  
  
“Moving? Again?” It didn’t surprise York; they usually packed all of their belongings and left wherever they were staying after pulling a successful heist. He did think he’d have more time to rest and relax, but if Delta wanted to move now, it was probably the most logical thing to do. “Fine, but I expect to pick up where we left off, all right?”  
  
“Acknowledged.” Delta started packing right away, today’s haul going right back into his duffel, and he and York worked on folding the cots together. Packing their things didn’t take long; they’d learned to pare down since they’d been on the road. Most of it could fit into a few bags, and once it was tucked away, it looked like they hadn’t even been here at all.  
  
“Right, let’s go.” They didn’t have their vehicles any more; they’d sold the Warthog once they’d realized they’d need the money, and their Mongoose had broken down from misuse. They’d been hoofing it since then, taking only what they could carry on their backs and going only as far as their feet could take them. “Where we headed?”  
  
“Old Mombasa.” He’d clearly planned out this transfer from the beginning of today’s mission, because he looked motivated as he stepped out of the warehouse.  
  
York shouldered his bags, trying not to groan with the effort; he didn’t want to sound like an old man. “How long will it take?”  
  
Delta must have researched this, because his answer came quickly. “Seven hours by train.”  
  
So it’d be dark by the time they got there. It would give them a better chance to find a good place to stay, and they’d be able to stay out of the worst of the day’s heat. Besides, York would get a chance to rest on the train; just walking now was aggravating the cramp he’d gotten during their mission.  
  
It wouldn’t have taken so long to get to the train station if they hadn’t been actively avoiding crowds. The sun was still punishingly hot, so they kept to the shaded side of the streets, taking as many back alleys as they could manage on their way out of town. But just when York was starting to think they were safe, Delta put a hand on his chest when he was about to turn a corner. “We are being followed,” he said quietly, voice full of warning.  
  
His entire body was tense, and York knew he wouldn’t let him pass until he’d figured out who was back there. He was looking past York’s left shoulder, and York knew it would be useless if he turned his head to look; his busted eye made his peripheral vision worthless on that side. Not knowing what was out there, though, made his stomach twist. “Recovery force?” It would have been their worst nightmare, but nothing they couldn’t handle with a little ingenuity and a lot of firepower. His trigger finger was itching already at the hope of a fight.  
  
“Unclear.” Delta shook his head. “I no longer have visual.” His voice was unusually strained, and his eyebrows were drawn tightly together, betraying how on-edge he was.  
  
If York asked him to clarify, maybe he could find out why Delta was suddenly so apprehensive. “How many people?”  
  
“One.”  
  
It still didn’t answer the question of who was following them, though. “Any idea who it is?”  
  
“I do not have enough data to formulate an answer.” He dropped his hand from York’s chest and started walking again, though his gait still betrayed a hint of twitchiness. “We should simply be happy it is gone.”  
  
It still didn’t stop the nagging worry that was now eating at York’s conscience. Out of sight, maybe, he thought as he followed Delta to the train station, but not out of mind.


	2. Chapter Two: Creature Comforts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buttsex

The house was easy enough for York to break into, seeing as the front door wasn’t even locked. Inside, it smelled faintly of cats, mold, and smoke. The walls were dirty, and the carpet was soiled and peeling up around the seams. The cabinets were falling down in the kitchen, but there were still dishes and food inside; whoever had been here before them had left in a hurry. Furniture was tipped over or in general disrepair, and personal effects were strewn everywhere. It was an obvious foreclosure, and it hadn’t been well-cared-for.  
  
The place also had a bed, and for that reason, it was perfect.  
  
York was content to lie there, spread-eagled and half-naked, letting the cool night breeze wash over him as it seeped through the broken panes of the windows. He knew he should be helping Delta unpack and set up perimeter defenses, but for now, it was enough for him to luxuriate here. “Have I told you,” he drawled, bringing his hands up behind his head, “how much I love you?”  
  
“Countless times,” Delta said, shutting his computer and putting it aside. “Today, however, you have failed to tell me thus far.”  
  
When York looked over, he could see the hint of a smile that was tugging at the corners of Delta’s mouth. “I love you.” It was warm and sincere, and he could see the smile spreading further across his partner’s face. If he was going to see that grin every time, he’d have to remember to tell him more often. “Seriously, how did you know about this place?”  
  
Delta was fiddling with an alarm, fitting it into the window casing and testing it over and over. “Old Mombasa is quickly falling into disrepair. Crime and poverty have led to deteriorating and increasingly dangerous conditions, which logically cause people to avoid this area.”  
  
“Perfect for us, though,” York reminded him – they were some of the ones causing the problem, after all. “I like this place,” he said offhandedly, glancing out the window at the partial moon as it was cut up by broken glass. “Fix it up, we might even be able to stay here.”  
  
“We would be illegal residents.” As Delta’s hand passed through the empty panes in his window, the sensors beeped, confirming he’d set them up correctly.  
  
“What, like squatters? Well, yeah,” York admitted sheepishly. “But it’s not so bad here. The carpets need replaced, and the kitchen would need a lot of love, but I think we could make this work.” It was too much fun to daydream about this – his mind was already on white picket fences. “You could get a legitimate job, and I could – well, I don’t know, some habits die hard. But we could get a cat! I’ve always wanted a cat.”  
  
Delta interrupted him before his daydream could get even more out of hand. “Statistically,” he said over the sound of a zipper, “remaining in one area for longer than two weeks drastically increases our chances of being discovered.”  
  
“Dee, you are absolutely no fun, you know that?” York turned his head back to grin at his partner, but it quickly turned into an open-mouthed stare: Delta was taking his shirt off, his back to York, marvelously un-self-conscious as he packed away his turtleneck. York tried his hardest not to let his train of thought come out as ‘buh guh muh’, but to concentrate, he had to turn his head away. “You really have no imagination.”  
  
“I apologize if my insistence on reality is interrupting your fantasy,” Delta said, but there was no cruel bite to his words. On the contrary, he sounded amused.  
  
“What’s so funny?” York teased, turning his head to grin at his partner now that he’d mentally prepared himself for the sight at hand.  
  
Delta, however, seemed to have other ideas; as soon as York locked eyes with him, he climbed up onto the bed and straddled him around the waist. “You forget,” he said softly, reaching out with a gentle fingertip to push York’s fringe out of his eyes, “that this is the reality you try so valiantly to escape.”  
  
York gulped as Delta’s hips sank a little further down, his eyes fluttering closed as Delta traced his face. “I – I don’t  _forget_ ,” he protested, but his resolve kept weakening as Delta’s lips deliberately closed around his earlobe. “I just have a hard time convincing myself that this  _is_  real – that it isn’t too good to be true.”  
  
“What must I do,” Delta murmured, his breath hot, letting his lips graze the shell of York’s ear, “to convince you?”  
  
At one point, York might have had a coherent response to that question. It might even have been sarcastic and witty. Right now, though, the best he could marshal was a ‘hnrg’ as Delta’s mouth traced a line from his ear to his scar. “What – what are you doing?” he finally managed to choke out once Delta pulled away.  
  
“Continuing where we left off, as per your instructions.” And when his lips finally met York’s, the touch was so sweet that he thought he could melt into the mattress. He reached up to clutch at Delta’s hair as hard as he could, run his hands through his long, soft blond curls, but Delta reached up and took them out. York’s wrists ended up pinned to his sides in a precise, mechanical way, leaving no room for him to doubt what was about to happen.  
  
It was an ambush, he was realizing, every touch of Delta’s perfectly calibrated to get him  _soclose_  but not quite, a graze of his fingertips under the waistband of York’s trousers, lips closing so near the hot spot on his neck. Delta was putting his all into this attack, fiercer than York had ever felt him as Delta ground against him, thighs tightening around his wrists. Every movement was so deliberate that York could tell: Delta had been planning this. He’d been learning, slowly but surely, exactly how to drive him crazy, and he was using all his knowledge to drive York out of his mind.  
  
If he didn’t pay attention, he could have sworn that Delta’s hands and lips were  _everywhere_ , but the path of his mouth had left a cool, wet trail between his neck and his  _ohgodyesthere_  nipple, one hand tugging on his ponytail to expose his adam’s apple, the other deftly undoing his fly and slipping inside. Too bad he’d lost the ability to form words right now, or he could tell Delta that he was about to lose his load before they’d really gotten started – except he seemed to know and dialed back the pressure just when York thought he was about to blow.  
  
“Let me touch you,” he demanded in a harsh whisper, and he disentangled his hands from Delta’s vice grip, not knowing what part of him he wanted first. The furthest he got was scrabbling at Delta’s shoulders, trying to find a grip, because  _nngh_  a cool hand was palming him under his briefs. This was so piercingly pleasurable that it was hard for York to believe it was real, but the sensations left no room for doubt. Delta’s mouth was sucking on his hipbone, and York pushed his hips up, loving how much he was losing control.  
  
Delta took advantage of the opportunity to slide York’s trousers and briefs down, purposefully skimming his hands over York’s ass. York tried to grip at anything he could, eventually getting a fistful of Delta’s hair and the edge of the mattress, and he knew he was going to need it when  _ohmygodwhatishedoing_  something wet and hot enveloped the head of his cock. He could have sworn his vision was exploding in stars, but when he opened his eyes, there was just moonlight highlighting the crumbling ceiling. “Nngh – Dee –  _God_  – “ he could have sworn he was saying words, but even English didn’t make sense when things felt this damn  _good_.  
  
He couldn’t help it; he bucked up again when Delta’s slick hand followed his mouth, and the tang of gun oil was sharp in his nose as he realized the two of them were fully skin-on-skin. Nothing this fantastic had ever happened between them, not even in his wildest fantasies. He only noticed he was practically choking on his tongue when Delta’s whisper, warm on his abs, reminded him to “breathe, York, just _breathe_.”  
  
The air he let out was a shudder, and he could barely catch his breath to tell his partner, “It feels like I’m going to have an aneurysm.”  
  
“I assume you mean this in a positive way,” Delta said drily as he came up to straddle York’s waist again, letting their cocks bump together, not seeming to mind when a smear of gun oil landed on his stomach.  
  
“Oh, trust me, if I’m going to die, I want this to be the way to go out,” York said in a huff.  
  
“You told me, once,” Delta said gently, reaching behind his back to position everything the way he wanted, “that sex has never killed.”  
  
How could he be so blasé about it? York felt so good he thought he was going to explode into a thousand million bits of fizzing, joyous light, and the feeling only intensified when Delta sank onto him _eversoslowly_ , taking him bit by bit. “Now I  _know_  I’m going to have an aneurysm,” he mock-complained, his eyes involuntarily rolling back.  
  
Once Delta had taken all he could, York could feel a cool palm on his abs. Everything had slowed down to just this pinpoint of existence, just that moment, and he opened his eyes when he felt fingers stroking his cheek. “Are you going to be all right?” Delta asked quietly, a look of concern creasing his face.  
  
“Yeah,” he sighed. “It’s – almost  _too_  good.” How could he put into words the feeling that he didn’t deserve this much bliss?  
  
“Should I cease?” His fingertips wiped some of the sweat away from under York’s fringe.  
  
York just grinned in return, bringing out his most sarcastic tone. “The key word was ‘almost.’”  
  
And just as the words left his mouth, Delta rocked against him, taking his breath away. All he could think to do was go along with the pace, hands roaming to Delta’s thighs, his cock, his hips, his ass, not knowing what he wanted to touch first, wanting to be everywhere at once. Delta’s constant refrain of “yes” was turning more and more into a hiss, and York knew his throat was moving and words probably weren’t coming out.  
  
Somehow, though, a particular twist from Delta made the inevitable crash down on him. “Dee – I’m not gonna last much longer ‘f you keep doing that…”  
  
“This?” Delta asked, his innocent tone tinged with a tease as he deliberately did it again.  
  
“That – oh – oh,  _yeah_ ,” and then he couldn’t hold back, “Delta, Dee,  _Derek_ , oh my  _God_ ,” stars in his eyes and a fire in his blood and a buzzing in his brain that he hoped would never go out as Delta followed him down.  
  
They were both breathless for a few moments, unable to do anything but smile at one another and hope to come up with something to say that could even attempt to encapsulate the experience they’d just had. Eventually, though, the moment had to end, and Delta pulled himself away, biting down a groan as he searched for his trousers. “Where are your cigarettes?” he asked, throwing York’s clothes on the bed.  
  
“They’re in the left pocket of the side facing me, but you don’t – “ Delta was already unzippering the pocket and taking out the carton and his lighter before he could finish his sentence – “have to get them.”  
  
“My hope was that you would be in no condition to get them yourself.” York could hear the wicked smile in Delta’s voice. The lighter flicked briefly, a spark of golden light in a pool of silver, and York hastened to get his pants back on by the time Delta had his cigarette ready.  
  
In no time at all, they were huddled together on the bed, a tangled mess of sweaty limbs, the cigarette ashing as it hung from York’s lips. “I did tell you I love you, right?”  
  
“I believe you did,” Delta said quietly, the sound almost a hum as he pressed himself closer into York.  
  
“And don’t you forget it.” He kissed Delta’s forehead gently. It had been so long since they’d had a truly good day, and this was as close as they might get for a while. There was nothing to do left but savor it – and hope for a shower in the morning.


	3. Chapter Three: Hack and Slash

York’s breathing was even and heavy, an arm flung over his face to keep the moonlight out of his eyes. By all accounts, he should have been asleep: he was thoroughly exhausted by the day’s events, and he finally had a mattress to sleep on instead of his flimsy cot. He always had trouble sleeping his first night in a new place, though, and the thoughts circling through his mind didn’t help.  
  
Really, it was an endless series of unanswerable questions. Who was it that had been following them to the train station? Had they been tracked to Old Mombasa? What would prompt someone to follow them _now_? Were they Recovery forces or friendly forces? And, most worryingly of all, why had Delta been so panicked?  
  
He seemed so calm now, though, light from his slate computer shining onto his face. York wondered if he was doing research, but he didn’t seem to be tugging at his lower lip, so he must have been reading. What would he read, though? York hadn’t known Delta to be much of a book-lover and couldn’t imagine him reading any fiction. It was only in moments like this that he realized how few things he and Delta really had in common – while he had still had his sight, he had been a voracious reader.  
  
Delta’s soft voice, though, interrupted his musings. “You are awake.”  
  
York shifted and brought his elbow away from his head. “You caught me,” he said warmly, trying to smile.  
  
“Your attempts to feign sleep do not compare to your actual sleeping habits.” Delta was still looking down at his slate – smartass kid had probably been able to tell by sound alone.  
  
“Yeah, yeah.” He only realized how beat-up his body was when he tried to sit up straight; pushing himself up was more painful than it should have been. “Man, I’m really not getting any younger, am I?”  
  
“Unfortunately, human entropy tends in only one direction,” Delta muttered, still concentrating on his screen.  
  
York didn’t even ask for a translation. “Why are you still up, anyway?”  
  
Delta flicked his screen off, and the sudden darkness left a hole in York’s vision. Somehow, though, Delta’s green eyes were still able to reflect all the moonlight in the room. “I was attempting to uncover the locations of Project Freelancer’s Recovery agents.”  
  
“Any luck?”  
  
“Luck is irrelevant to hacking a database of tracking beacons.” His tone was snippy, and even as he climbed onto the mattress, his entire body seemed stiff. “I was unable to confirm any recent coordinates before the system recognized an intruder.”  
  
York pulled him closer, hoping his embrace would help his partner release some of his tension. “It’s okay. Besides, you got at least something, right?”  
  
“I was able to confirm the identities of all the Recovery units.” His shoulders were still up around his ears, and he wasn’t responding to York’s motions of comfort at all.  
  
York knew what could clam him up like that. “Something in there scared you.” Delta nodded sharply, his eyes focused on a spot on the opposite wall. “I need to know what you found,” York reminded him.  
  
“Several aspects of the database alarmed me,” Delta said in a mechanical way, drawing his knees up to his chest in an uncharacteristically closed gesture. “The first was the apparent defection of several Freelancers, most notably Agent Texas and Agent Wyoming.”  
  
York’s stomach knotted – those were the two agents who had consistently placed above them in B-net rankings. “Wait, when did that happen?” He’d assumed that Project Freelancer had gone on relatively unchanged in their absence.  
  
“Their date of defection coincides with the date of our escape.”  
  
However, he knew Delta had more pressing concerns. “What about Omega and Gamma?”  
  
“They are not listed with their previous partners.”  
  
“Any idea where they are? If they’re even alive?”  
  
Delta shook his head. “My search of the database ended before I could discern their location. They are alive, but beyond that, I have insufficient data to speculate on their condition.”  
  
He still wasn’t looking at York; something else was obviously bothering him. “Who did you find that was in the Recovery force?”  
  
Delta was quiet for a few seconds; York wanted to break through to him, crack the shell he’d clammed up into and get to the root of his partner’s discomfort, but he knew it would take time. Better to pick locks than to break them. “Based on the binary division of the database and the selective removal of defunct data, any agent who is not listed as defected is listed as a Recovery agent. “  
  
“’Defunct’ data?” York probed.  
  
“There was a path to another database where they seem to have stored entries for agents who remain unclassified. Most entries appear to be of agents who were listed as killed in action on previous personnel reports.” York could see Delta’s knuckles turning white, the grip as he hugged his knees getting even more intense.  
  
“But what about people like us?” York hoped they wouldn’t have been listed with Tex and Wyoming; those two were obviously rogue and dangerous, and he and Delta were trying their hardest to live off the grid and stay below the radar.  
  
“We no longer have an entry in either database. I assume this is because of the manner of our disappearance. However, another agent with an anomaly similar to ours seems to have been reinstated in the main database.”  
  
York noticed Delta’s reluctance to say the name. He could only think of one other person who could have a set of odd circumstances surrounding his removal from the base, but it was unthinkable that he would still be in Project Freelancer’s records. “Are you talking about Wash?” Delta nodded. York could only hug him harder around the shoulders; he knew where Delta’s mind was going, and he knew it was distressing. Both of them had played some part in Epsilon’s story, and York still felt vaguely responsible for what had happened that weekend. “I thought he was certified Article Twelve. If he’s ‘unfit for duty’, why is he back in the database?”  
  
“According to the data, he has been decertified; however, his previous condemnation has not been fully erased from his record.”  
  
“And he’s rogue, right?” York could only hope.  
  
“He is listed as a Recovery agent.”  
  
That flipped York’s switch from anguish to anger. “He just as good as killed Epsilon – why in the hell was he certified as a damn Recovery agent?”  
  
“The counselor’s logic seems to be that Agent Washington would make an ideal Recovery agent precisely because of the psychological effects of losing his partner in such a traumatic way.” Delta’s emotionless tone chilled York, and he could feel the anger draining out of him, only to be replaced by dread. “He is the most likely to bring any recovered agents back to Command headquarters because he has been shown to be unwilling to work alongside anyone since the incident.”  
  
“He’s a loose cannon,” York grumbled. “I don’t exactly trust him with any kind of firearm.”  
  
“I do not agree with Command’s decision to reinstate him,” Delta pointed out.  
  
“Please tell me he’s not the only one,” York groaned, fighting the urge to massage his temples.  
  
“Of course not.” He seemed reluctant to give up the rest of his information, though. “Most appear to be single units, but the most hostile unit is the Agent Maine – Sigma partnership.”  
  
York knew he ought to feel more threatened by this information, but he didn’t know enough about those agents to make any kind of informed evaluation. “What’s so dangerous about them?”  
  
“I have no reliable reference points to assess what they might be capable of doing.” Delta shivered for a few moments before he could continue. “If their growth continues as extrapolated from the data I acquired, they have become exponentially stronger in our absence.”  
  
“I don’t even remember what their job was. I mean, Tex and Omega were forces from hell, and Wyoming and Gamma got by on deceit,” York mused. “You and I were a little more specialized, but I thought they needed only one breaking-and-entering team.”  
  
“Agent Maine and Sigma were never assessed by the conventional BattleNet standards because their missions could never be publicized without the risk of investigation and incrimination,” Delta explained. “In the few months we were based in Command headquarters, they were responsible for the kidnap and torture of no less than thirty separate operatives. I had always known Sigma was potentially dangerous, but he seems to have actualized that potential since his pairing with Agent Maine.”  
  
York could detect a note of wistfulness in his exposition. “Did you know him well at the Academy?”  
  
“I shared a room with him for six and a half years.” Delta was slowly letting go of his death grip on his knees, but his voice was beginning to shake. The only thing York could think to do was hold him tighter; he obviously needed to tell this story. “I was his missions partner before Project Alpha was linked to Project Freelancer. I tutored him in physics and mathematics. When he was particularly distracted or distraught, I read him his textbooks. We sparred frequently and played chess often. I became familiar with his disposition and his capacity. I was convinced I knew him well.  
  
“After being paired with Agent Maine, he gradually ceased communication with me. He retained none of the mannerisms I had grown accustomed to; instead, he preferred to mimic Agent Maine. When I discovered the nature of his activities and attempted to speak to him, he returned to Agent Maine without acknowledging my presence.” Delta swallowed, trying to steady his voice, and finally began to accept York’s consoling touches. “I lost contact with him by the time we managed to escape from Project Freelancer. I can make no projections as to how much he has changed, but I suspect that Agent Maine’s character and the types of acts he was encouraged to perform played a role in his alteration.”  
  
After Delta had been so open with him, York was almost afraid to voice his newest fear, but it had to be said. “Do you think they were following us?”  
  
Delta laid his head on York’s shoulder; York could see the concentrated frown on his face, longed to see it replaced with a more lighthearted look, but it would have to wait. “I saw a solitary figure today,” Delta reminded him. “However, if one person is following us, logic would dictate that others could be as well.”  
  
“So we really have no idea,” York realized. “That’s so reassuring. And I thought I was going to get some sleep tonight.”  
  
He could tell Delta had acknowledged his sarcasm when he could feel the corner of his mouth against his neck. “The sensors are correctly in place. We would have at least two seconds of warning before any intruder could harm us.”  
  
“Two seconds? That’s so much time to plan,” York joked. It was black humor, but any laughter was better than no laughter at all.  
  
“I may sleep with a firearm if it would help you to relax,” Delta offered.  
  
“I thought we agreed on no guns in bed?” He tried to stay serious, he really did, but it was just so hard when things seemed so weighty.  
  
“We could make an exception.” At least Delta was playing along.  
  
“I’m not really that worried about it, Dee.” He kissed Delta’s forehead before slumping back on the mattress. “I’m sure we’ll live through the night with minimal injuries to our persons.”  
  
Delta settled into his side. “What is our objective for tomorrow?”  
  
At last, a more stable topic of conversation. They had this discussion every night. “I was thinking we’d find a place where we could reliably scrounge some food. You okay with acting as a lookout?”  
  
“That plan sounds acceptable.” Delta sounded sleepier than usual.  
  
“Good night, then.” He didn’t get an answer; Delta was already asleep, his head resting on York’s chest, an arm slung across his stomach. He was always amazed at how quickly Delta could go between deep sleep and lucid alertness, and he wondered where he could pick up the same skill for himself. He’d fall asleep eventually, though – paying attention to Delta’s breathing usually calmed him enough. “Love you,” he mumbled, closing his eyes.


	4. Chapter Four: Turf

Day was only beginning to dawn over Old Mombasa when York blinked awake. He was cold – the draft from the broken window had turned from refreshing to brisk in the night. It didn’t help that he was still shirtless. He rolled over, trying to snatch Delta and cradle him for a few more hours’ sleep, but his arm only passed through empty air. So Delta was already awake. How much sleep did that kid even need? Sometimes York could swear that Delta seemed to get by on none at all.  
  
Resolved, he sat up in bed and immediately re-aggravated the cramp in his thigh from the day before. His back was sore and his throat was dry. More than that, though, he was still exhausted. He’d been getting less and less sleep lately, and not just because he was always on high alert. Being on the run was taking its toll on him, physically and emotionally, and some days he was sure he was older than his years. He had already outlived his own expectations for himself. Maybe it was time to stop running, to retire to a quiet place where he and Delta couldn’t be disturbed or rooted out by Recovery agents. He had been serious about renovating the place where they were staying now – it would do just as well as any, he supposed.  
  
Especially since it seemed to still have running water. Delta was proof of this, walking into the room with a towel around his waist and rubbing another through his hair. York wished he could pin him down to the mattress, give him a little payback, but Delta’s voice cut through his thoughts. “Our mission begins at 0700. The current time is 0645.”  
  
“I don’t remember putting you in charge,” York grumbled back good-naturedly as he groped towards the bathroom. Two minutes under cold water and he was as clean as he’d ever been; two more minutes and his clothes were on, his hair pulled back. Delta, of course, was immaculate, contemplating – what else – his slate as York continued to get ready. “Where are we starting first?” he asked, shoving things into his bag.  
  
“This district.” Delta flipped his slate so York could see it, manipulating a map on it with two fingertips so York could see multiple colors of annotated notes. It was clear he’d need to concentrate to get all of this information, so he pulled up a crate and tried to follow as Delta made his presentation. “Law enforcement is unlikely to begin patrolling until 0730, at which time our likelihood of being discovered rises according to this equation.  
  
He pulled up the graph over the map, and York just shook his head and chuckled. “English, please.”  
  
“From 1000 until 1900, the percent chance of a police altercation hovers around forty percent,” he explained, circling the highest portion of the line. “As we radiate outwards from here, our likelihood of fleeing contact drops by four percent for every five hundred meters.”  
  
“I don’t like it,” York said tersely. Things were looking a little too tight for his taste. “Go back to the map, I want to see what our options are for this area.”  
  
Delta obliged. Each prospective building was highlighted with orange, and three numbers were listed alongside each one. By now, York knew his partner’s system like the back of his hand: the first number was a difficulty rating peaking at 10, the second was a rating of expected reward in supplies, and the third was an estimation of the total net value of their expected theft. York peered closer at the screen, trying to see the screen better with his one good eye. “When did you have the time for all this?” he said quietly, mostly to himself.  
  
“The algorithms remain the same; only the specific permutation is different.” Delta zoomed in on one building in particular, pulling up the numbers so York could see them more clearly. “I recommend this location for our first strike.”  
  
It looked straightforward enough. Predictably middle-risk, it provided an ample payout in supplies, and York liked the way it backed into a series of hidden alleys. An asterisk, however, made him pause and re-evaluate the level 7 risk. “What kind of security is on this?”  
  
“Physical security is at a minimum.” An eerily accurate street-view shot backed up Delta’s statement.  
  
It was nothing York couldn’t handle; from his perspective, it would have been a level 3. “So what’s wrong with it?”  
  
“Electronic security appears to engage a nonstandard and unstable code designed to deter petty thieves. There is a risk of electrocution while the system remains engaged.” Delta now zoomed into the roof, circling what looked like a generator with his fingertip. “The command center is located here. The system is likely to give only a certain window during which you will be able to tamper with an entry point.”  
  
York looked into Delta’s face; he seemed to be enjoying this a little too much. “You just wanted to make this difficult for you, didn’t you?” he realized, smiling his crooked grin.  
  
“Essentially.” When he shut off his slate and met York’s gaze, he had a little extra sparkle in his green eyes that York could only attribute to mischievousness.  
  
He knew the signal, though, and double-checked his favorite firearms before shouldering his rucksack and strapping his pistol to his thigh. “Which entrance is the safest?”  
  
Delta was ready, too, cracking his knuckles and rolling out his wrists before picking up his own bag. “The front door is heavily protected physically, but few points are linked to the electronic system.”  
  
Delta was making as if to leave, but York was having none of that. “So you’re telling me that you’re going to be on the roof while I’m picking the front door?”  
  
He must have heard the bite in York’s tone, because he stopped in the doorway and turned to face him. “Affirmative.”  
  
York crossed his arms, trying to crush the sudden flutter of panic rising in his chest. “You know how I feel about that.” They’d had that discussion during their first night on the run. The last thing York wanted during a mission like this was to have Delta out of his line of sight.  
  
Delta shrugged off his concern. “Consider this an experiment to determine your current tolerance level. Previous iterations have demonstrated a basic resistance.”  
  
“ ‘Basic resistance’?” Kid sure used some strange euphemisms. “Dee, the last time we tried this, you found me curled into the fetal position and shivering on the floor. I  _really_  don’t want to repeat that experience.”  
  
“Variables have changed,” Delta pointed out, sounding a little stung. “Your stress level is considerably lower, considering the events of yesterday.”  
  
It was the way he said it that cut through York’s coil of panic. He tried to keep the smile off his face, but settled for raising an eyebrow. “You lubed me up for this.”  
  
Delta dropped his gaze in what would be a demure look on anyone else, the sudden pinkness in his cheeks only adding to the effect. The slight way the corner of his mouth was trembling to avoid a smile, though, was only adding to his wicked look. “I did engage you in an activity that has reliably lowered your level of tension – at your request.”  
  
York couldn’t even pretend to be mad; he was far too impressed with Delta’s foresight and pragmatism. “You little snot,” he teased.  
  
Delta looked up with an innocent-looking wide-eyed stare, but his tone was purely professional. “0700,” he announced. Discussion over: time to move out.  
  
The place they were targeting wasn’t too far away, but the city looked so different by daylight that York trusted Delta to lead. They weren’t the only ones out at this time of the morning – commuters were navigating their cycles along the broken-down road, and residents were beginning to gossip between balconies and on street corners. York could tell that they stared while he and Delta went by, but soon returned to their conversations. It made York wonder what forces were driving Old Mombasa into disrepair. Did the civilians think they were gang members? Smugglers in a drug cartel? Undercover cops? Rebel forces?  
  
It didn’t matter: they turned a blind eye, and York had more oppressing worries. “How will I know when you’ve disarmed the system?”  
  
Delta was still moving, but the street they were on was too crowded. He ducked into a back alley, and York had no choice but to follow. “An indicator inside the door frame will emit a flashing yellow light,” he said over his shoulder. Anticipating York’s next question, he continued, “There will be an interval of three minutes and nineteen seconds, during which three locks of ascending difficulty must be removed. At the end of the interval, the front door must be shut for the system to register continuous contact and disguise any abnormalities.”  
  
York almost ran into Delta as his partner came to an abrupt stop. This must have been the back side of the building. It was nondescript, but then again, in York’s experience, they usually were. Delta had jumped up to grab the rung of a fire escape ladder by the time York thought to ask another question. “How are you getting in?”  
  
“There is a weak – “ a screech of metal on metal interrupted his statement – “panel beneath the main generator. Failing this, the front door may be opened from the inside when security is fully engaged. I am carrying appropriate rappelling equipment for either scenario.”  
  
He was close to the roof by now, but York didn’t want to let him out of his sight – not yet. “Delta?” He turned to face him, clinging onto the last section of ladder leading to the roof. He looked so composed, so in charge, but suddenly anything York wanted to say sounded trite and clichéd. “Good luck” would only be met with a dismissive retort, “I love you” was too sappy, and “Be safe” was redundant. He settled for “I’m trusting you for all this, you know,” said in his most teasing tone.  
  
“I am aware,” Delta replied. He swung himself onto the roof, and York could only hear his landing – the rest of his footsteps were silent.  
  
Well, then. With an instinctual feeling of unease, York forced himself to look away from where he’d last seen his partner and focus on the job at hand. Windows looked pretty standard – it would take more than his elbow to break them, and the entire point of targeting this place was to get more frags and make these kinds of jobs easier in the future. Without following Delta, he had no idea what the roof was like, but if it was like anything he’d seen on the satellite image, the only entrances not under the generator were too narrow for him to fit. Air vents hadn’t been his specialty since before he’d hit puberty, and he still had scars from an attempt gone very wrong. The side doors had no outside handles, only electrical contacts to ensure they were shut. If they’d had more time, and if Delta were at his side, it wouldn’t be suck a problem, but Delta must have known something he didn’t that kept him from choosing this option.  
  
Front door it was, then. Why was the damn kid always right all the time? A quick scan showed the street was clear – not a soul in sight. It was quiet in this district. York was usually thankful for a little outward peace, but he couldn’t fully enjoy it without Delta. He jumped at the sound of a piece of trash blowing in the morning breeze, but at least he could laugh a little about how jumpy he was. This – this was nothing. If it weren’t for the hacking, he could have done this job when he was twelve. But he  _wasn’t_  twelve, and there  _was_  hacking to be done, and he needed Delta, he didn’t feel right doing this alone, something was going to happen –  
  
He let out a shaky breath. This was ridiculous – nothing to be afraid of. The locks looked standard, if somewhat old, but that would only be an advantage for York. Now just to wait for the light – if he could  _find_ the light he was supposed to watch…  
  
There. It was small, but it was flashing yellow, just like Delta said it would. York’s accurate fingers undid the first lock in a matter of seconds. The second used a key mechanism he hadn’t seen in years, and he went through two picks before he found a way that worked. It was a fine line between the patience he needed to pick the locks and the tight deadline he was under. Usually he was much more efficient than this. Was he losing his touch?  
  
It wasn’t really anything to worry about: he still had a minute and a half to get through the last lock and make his way inside. He was irrationally twitchy, though, and it was only exacerbated when he thought he saw a blur of black out of the corner of his left eye. He turned his head towards it, trying to catch it with his good eye while he went at the lock by feel. Of course it was gone – if it had ever really been there at all.  
  
An odd sound called his attention back to the task at hand, but he couldn’t quite reconcile it with the scraping sounds of metal on metal. He took a deep breath to steady himself. He was just being paranoid. Right? He stilled his hands for a moment, turning his head inconspicuously, but the sounds continued. What was it? Law enforcement? He thought they’d had more time than that. He had to get inside, had to get safe, hands fumbling at the lock, silently begging it to open for him.  
  
But apparently he wasn’t being so paranoid after all. He heard the distinctive click of a rifle raised to a shoulder, a sound that chilled him. He wanted to turn around to accost the interloper, but a cold voice interrupted his plans. “All right, freeze.”  
  
York froze.


	5. Chapter Five: Peril

York had been right. His instincts had been right. He’d have to tell Delta the next time he saw him, if there was going to be a next time, given the rifle that seemed to be aimed at his back and the malevolent force behind said firearm. This – this was not good. He had always had a tendency to lock up when put into these types of situations, and he’d always relied on Delta to get him out alive.  
  
Of course, Delta wasn’t here. He’d have to do the next best thing – wing it. “Uh… sorry, officer, I… lost the keys to my shop, here, and I was trying to figure out a way to, you know… um…” He wasn’t concerned about the words so much as he was concerned about keeping the movements of his right hand undetected. That pistol was still strapped to his thigh, and it would significantly even the odds, especially if this wasn’t trained law enforcement.  
  
It didn’t fly. “I said  _freeze_!”  
  
He locked up again, hands flying up by his shoulders to show that he was playing along. That voice had sounded familiar – if he could only turn around… “All right, all right,” he muttered, his genial tone masking the raw terror rising in his throat. “I was just trying to get into the place when I realized I didn’t have the keys, and –“  
  
He was cut off in the middle of his sentence. “You never were a very good liar.” The tone was warmer now, more amused than deadly, but still had a ring of danger to it.  
  
York let out a sigh that would have been a curse if he wasn’t so afraid of being shot. He knew who it was behind his back now – the same person who had loitered around their old hideout, the same stalker who’d followed them to Old Mombasa. “Hello,  _Allison_ ,” he said pointedly, hoping it would reinforce an old connection.  
  
She didn’t seem to be in such a forgiving mood. “I haven’t been called Allison in a really long time. You call me Tex or nothing at all.” Had Delta been so sure that he’d read the database correctly? Wash certainly didn’t seem up to snuff as a Recovery agent, and it didn’t make sense for her to go rogue, considering her rather close relationship with the Director.  
  
“Fine,  _Tex_ ,” he sighed, bringing his hands down a fraction. The metallic clicking of the shifting of a rifle, though, told him that any kind of fidgeting was a bad idea, and he stiffened again. He started over, trying to stay calm, trying to brainstorm a way to get Delta’s attention and get the hell away from her. “Look, I’m sure we can have a reasonable discussion about this, but if you would just –“  
  
He was interrupted by the soft thud of a rope hitting the ground. There, feet perched on the edge of the roof, his right hand holding his rappelling cable taut, was Delta. He was obviously ready to fast-rope in to York’s defense, but he had the high ground: his pistol was aimed directly at where York imagined Tex’s head was, his arm and his aim unwavering. York had never been more thankful – or more in love with Delta – in his life, and it only intensified when Delta’s gaze narrowed, mouth pulled up in a slight snarl, hair ruffled to standing in the slight morning breeze. “Agent Texas,” he said icily, his voice so threatening that York almost didn’t recognize it, “you are to cease this hostage situation immediately or risk the use of lethal force.”  
  
“What the – “ She hadn’t seen Delta yet; York turned around, assuming her focus had changed, but her gun was now pointed straight into his face instead of at the back of his head. “You’re still together?” she hissed at him.  
  
In response, Delta only rappelled a few feet down the building, eyes and pistol still trained on Tex. “Alarm: threat level raised. Seventy-one percent chance of violent outcome,” he said in that same threatening tone. There was no question that he’d do something drastic to get York out of this situation.  
  
It was definitely time for York to step in before someone got seriously hurt. “Okay, take it easy,” he drawled, one hand intercepting Delta’s line of fire as he rappelled down the building, the other patting the end of Tex’s rifle. “Nobody needs to die today – in fact, I’d really rather not…”  
  
Delta was back by his side, but it didn’t make York feel any less uneasy. In fact, he still had his pistol raised and wouldn’t take his eyes off of Tex, refusing to blink. When York looked to Tex, she had the same expression on her face. “The chance of defeating Agent Texas in combat is extremely unlikely,” Delta muttered in his ear. “However, certain contingency plans –“  
  
Best to cut that off before he really got started. “Thank you, Dee.” York hoped he heard ‘shut up’ instead.  
  
Tex still hadn’t aimed away from York’s face, though. “What the hell’s going on here?” she asked, nudging York’s hand off the end of her gun.  
  
“Look, weapons down, both of you.” It took a few seconds, but eventually there were no firearms aiming for human body parts. It didn’t entirely dissipate the tension – Tex and Delta were still glaring hotly enough to cut through steel – but it was something. When York reached down to take Delta’s right hand off of the rappelling cord, Delta just gripped onto him with the same white-knuckled intensity. A few moments of awkward silence later, and York was beginning to feel uncomfortable enough to speak. “So you found us, huh?”  
  
“I’m not saying it was easy,” she spat. “You weren’t easy to track – but petty theft?  _Really_ , York? I thought you were better than that.”  
  
“I – Petty?” York latched onto. Delta was twitchy, but when York squeezed his hand, he managed to look a little less murderous. “Excuse us if we had to get a little inventive while we were on the run. Living off the grid doesn’t really make ends meet, you know.”  
  
“You’ll be thrilled to know I have a proposition for you, then.” Her eyes darted back and forth; the street was beginning to pick up some traffic from pedestrians. “Is there someplace we can talk without being overheard?” she whispered back.  
  
York looked to Delta, then back to Tex. The two of them were entirely too edgy around one another – maybe having a civilized discussion would cut through a little of that. “Let’s get inside.”  
  
It was York leading them this time; by the stiffness in Delta’s posture, he wanted nothing to do with Tex being led back to their hideout. He knew at least some of the back routes by now, and he tried to avoid the main streets: it would not only draw unwarranted attention, but also serve to make Tex a little more disoriented. He doubled back a few times for good measure, but the fourth time he ran them around in circles, Tex snapped. “Are you just yanking my chain or are we going to talk business here?”  
  
“All right already.” Of course she’d be able to tell that they were leading her in circles. From the outside, their little place really did look shabby – York could only hope that she wouldn’t judge them by their choice of residence.  
  
“Nice place,” she commented once they were in the front door. York could see her eyes sweeping, taking in everything he’d seen the night before: the filthy walls, the stained carpet, the half-assed demolition in the kitchen, the mess of furniture and personal effects everywhere. She sniffed – she’d finally picked up the smell of filth and cats. “You furnish it yourself?” she asked sarcastically, heading up the stairs.  
  
“Actually, I had an interior decorator help me,” he replied just as sarcastically. When Tex reached the top of the stairs, she just looked back over her shoulder at York, her arms crossed in obvious disbelief. “She’s gone now… Anyways, you were saying?”  
  
“I told you, I have a job that needs done.” Once she reached their room, she sat down on their mattress; it sagged under her weight, springs whining. She finally holstered her gun, but when she reached for her pack, Delta twitched up his pistol again. With a look and a motion from York, it went back down again before Tex noticed the weapon pointed at her head, but she still glared in Delta’s direction as she brought out a slate computer.  
  
Time for York to take things into his own hands. “Listen, queue up the presentation, we’d love to hear it, but I need to have a word with Delta first.” Without waiting on confirmation from either of them, York grabbed Delta’s upper arm and marched him out of the room.  
  
Delta got the hint, at least, and shut the door behind them. His voice was a harsh whisper. “I acknowledge that your plan to lead her back to our current location may have seemed illogical at first, but this proves to be an opportune time to assassinate Agent Texas. While she loads the-“  
  
York didn’t wait for him to finish that sentence. “You want to  _what_?”  
  
“Kill Agent Texas,” he replied in his oh-so-logical tone. “I admit that hiding the evidence of the murder may take all of my skill, but I believe this to be in our best interest.”  
  
“But why – what – “ Obviously Delta was on some far higher plane of thought that York couldn’t reach, because all of this was completely incomprehensible to him.  
  
“Did you completely forget,” Delta hissed, eyes uncharacteristically narrowed in anger, “that the database we decrypted that prompted our escape from Command implicated Agent Texas in the systematic torture and brainwashing of myself and my fellow Greek agents?”  
  
York blinked. Delta took the opportunity to wrench his arm out of York’s death grip. York blinked again, trying to sort all of this through. “You think she did all of that?”  
  
“I have no evidence to the contrary,” Delta pointed out.  
  
York sighed. “This is going to be a really bad time to tell you this,” he admitted, “but… she didn’t. They co-opted her name from some old psych profiles she’d done and made the whole thing look like she did it.”  
  
“And how did you verify this information?”  
  
“Tex told me herself.”  
  
York had never seen Delta roll his eyes before, and it was disconcerting to see him shrug aside the only proof he had of her lack of culpability. “Did you consider that she may have been deliberately deceiving you in order to manipulate you into giving her assistance?”  
  
“Listen, I don’t think she would have lied about something like that. She was trying to rescue the Alpha.” Delta stopped squinting just the slightest bit, and York had to hope that he was getting through to his partner.  
  
Delta paused for a few seconds, eyebrows knotting in thought, eyes focusing on the floor. York could almost see him thinking – but when he opened his mouth, he didn’t show any sign of having understood anything York had said. “Unfortunately, I do not currently have my silencer on my person,” he continued, as if York had never interrupted him, “but we can surpass this inconvenience by using brute force.”  
  
“Brute force? On  _Tex_? Are you kidding me, Dee?” York grasped his arm again, staring him down so Delta could get the full impact of his words. “That woman could rip my teeth out through my anus, tear my testicles out through my mouth, and beat me to death with my own skull. If I were very lucky, she would do it in reverse order. I'm  _very much inclined_  to reason with her.”  
  
Delta paused for a moment, some of the murderous rage draining from his face. “Those actions… do not seem physically possible.”  
  
“I know.  _I’ve seen her do it._  I know what she’s capable of doing to someone like me, let alone you. Two of us together wouldn’t be much of a fight – even if she weren’t armed, we’d be at her mercy in seconds. She’s – she’s inhuman, Dee, an absolute machine, and I do  _not_  want to be on the wrong side of her.” York gave Delta a minute to respond, but when he didn’t get immediately snarked at, he figured he’d finally gotten through.  
  
Finally, after what seemed like forever, Delta nodded. “She has not attempted to kill us yet. This means that we are still useful to her alive. Her current mission must require our set of skills.”  
  
“Promise not to kill her while we hear her out,” York whispered, keeping Delta from entering the room without him.  
  
“Of course.” Delta was the one to open the door, and he was much less tense than he was before.  
  
Tex looked up and raised an eyebrow as they came back. It was an unspoken question, and York knew it was better to answer. “Sorry about that. We had to have a little… chat.”  
  
“Right,” she drawled. It was plain she wanted to ask more questions, but she and Delta were side-eyeing each other again.  
  
York was more interested in what he was smelling, though. “Is that coffee?”  
  
“I figured I’d help myself to your stove,” she explained.  
  
York’s mouth was watering. “I haven’t had coffee in – well, in a long time.” It was the closest to hospitality he was likely to get from Tex. And since, as Delta had pointed out, they were still alive, it was unlikely that the tin cup she was handing him was poisoned. “So you tracked us down, huh?” he said conversationally, holding his face over the warmth radiating up from his coffee.  
  
“I realized I was gonna need a little help to do what I want to do.” She turned her slate so York could see it. “There’s a place I need to get into –“  
  
“And they don’t want you to get into it.” This was starting to sound awfully familiar to York. “Why is it that people always come to me for this kind of stuff?”  
  
“Because you’re the infiltration specialist.” He could hear the ‘duh’ she was trying so hard not to say.  
  
He looked down at the schematic and whistled low under his breath. “Jesus.” This looked  _complicated_  – even more complicated than what he’d helped her with before. “What is it that they don’t want you to find?”  
  
“Anything related to Omega’s current whereabouts,” she said tersely, flipping the slate out of his view again.  
  
“Gonna get him back?” York was no fan of this plan, but he hid whatever biting remark he was going to say in a sip of coffee.  
  
“No, York.” A smile spread across Tex’s face, not quite reaching her eyes, only serving to make her look more dangerous. “I’m gonna kill him.”


	6. Chapter Six: Enemy of an Enemy

York spit out his mouthful of coffee, but before he could say anything, Delta cut in. “Explain.”  
  
Tex sighed. “You both know what it’s like. Spend enough time with somebody like that, and you realize one day that they know everything you ever knew. That they’re thinking your thoughts before they even crossed your mind.” York looked over to Delta only to find wide green eyes staring right back, his partner’s expression most likely a mirror of the one he had on his own face. “The problem is, Omega knows too much.”  
  
“What is it that he knows that he shouldn’t?” York asked once he had his faculties back.  
  
Tex let out a short, mirthless laugh. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”  
  
She wasn’t joking, York realized as her pale eyes stared him down. She looked more haggard than he’d ever seen her before, worn through to the core just like he and Delta were, and he didn’t want to push her too much. York felt so close to snapping himself – he couldn’t even imagine how Tex must have been holding it all together.  
  
Delta must have noticed him musing, because he cut in with another question. “What will he do with this information?”  
  
“You know him, Delta. You know what he’s capable of.” York saw a slight shudder in Delta at her words; it must be worse than he could imagine. “He’s completely unfiltered rage, and my best guess is that he wants to take over and control the universe.”  
  
“Take over the universe?” York quipped. “Isn’t that a little… blown out of proportion?”  
  
Tex, however, was deadly serious. “He could do it, you know. I don’t need to explain why this is a very bad thing, do I?” she asked York, talking down to him.  
  
“I may not be Delta, but I’m not completely stupid,” York muttered into his cup. Another sip of coffee and the caffeine began flooding his senses. He was starting to have some strong misgivings about this project. “You’re sure you need our help for this?”  
  
“He’s not alone.” Tex fiddled with her slate, eventually showing them a pulsing dot on her map. “Wyoming,” she explained.  
  
“Ugh, speak of the devil,” York groaned. He needed far more coffee than what Tex had poured him if he was going to go through with this. “Please tell me he won’t put us through his terrible knock-knock jokes.”  
  
“You dork, this is serious.” She’d lightened up a little, the shadow of a smile falling across her face, but it faded as soon as she turned back to her work. “I’ve already put in most of the work in tracking Wyoming here, but I need you and Delta to get in.”  
  
She zoomed out on the map. Not only was her plan intricate, difficult, and prone to complications, but the installation she wanted to assault was a thin needle of a stronghold, staking its claim on a tiny island. York took it in for a few minutes, but Delta was already asking the questions he wished he could say. “What forces are we expected to encounter?”  
  
“I don’t know much about the building itself,” Tex admitted. “We’ll have to camp out for a few days, scope the weak points and the guards, but if they’re anything like the last two mooks I took out for Wyoming, it shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“Maybe not for you,” York pointed out, subtly gesturing to the left side of his face. Was she that crazy, to think that the three of them could make it into that installation and get the information they needed without being touched?  
  
Delta took York’s hesitation as a sign to speak up. “The assessment that Agent Texas has made on this facility appears to accurately represent the risks and rewards of this venture.”  
  
“I just think it’s too risky to be worth our while. There’s absolutely nothing in it for us,” York interrupted before Delta could pick up any more momentum. As much as he’d wanted to fire his guns again, if this was really going to be Tex-level reconnaissance, he and Delta didn’t stand a chance.  
  
Tex cut in before they could bicker any more. “How’s the vision in your eye?” she asked, nodding to the scarred mess on his face.  
  
It was such an apparent non-sequitur that York didn’t know how to respond for a few seconds. “Blurry,” he said cautiously, not knowing what she was probing for. “Dark, some of the time. Hurts when I read. Can’t focus on a slate for very long. Aim’s bad, too.”  
  
“Betcha wanna hurt whoever did it to you,” she said.  
  
York still didn’t understand. “Yeah, if I knew who it was. Couldn’t really see that well, what with him slashing at my face and getting one of my eyes. Some ginger-haired bastard, though.” Then, as he watched her reaction, it suddenly hit him, and his fist clenched of its own accord. “You know who did it.”  
  
“It’s blindingly obvious.” Tex skipped a beat, then realized what she’d said and smiled. “Pardon the pun.”  
  
“That mugging happened before Project Freelancer even started, if you’re insinuating what I think you’re insinuating.” If the timeline he’d unlocked in Delta was right, Omega should have been under the control of Project Alpha during that timespan.  
  
“Omega often… tested the strength of the Academy’s enclosures,” Delta said delicately. “It is entirely plausible that he may have escaped at least once, if not multiple times, and that he would have unleashed his full cruelty until he was recaptured.”  
  
York’s instinct was to put his palm to his face, but he winced when he realized his coffee was still in his right hand – he’d smacked his scar with his left and it stung badly, adding injury to insult. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered.  
  
“He told me all about it, you know.” York couldn’t tell by her tone if Tex was simply informing him or goading him into something. “How he bypassed the security system to get out, what street he was on when he met you, how much money you had in your wallet, what blood type you were.” She closed her eyes for a moment, then refocused on him. “I never asked how he learned that part. But what he was most particular about was the way he did it. It was the same thing he tried to do to anybody, really. He tried to kill you, York.” Her tone was still so impersonal, but she had to know that each detail was a new barb to him. “He told me he went for your throat first, but you must have been faster than that. Eyes are his favorites, though.” She raised an eyebrow, and York’s attention was drawn to a thin purple scar there. Had Omega been crazy enough to attack her, too? “He likes to take souvenirs. His personal effects were full of  _jars_  of them. It was so surgically precise, the way each of them were preserved. He must have been in a hurry with you, though, because the whole side of your face is a mess. At least you still have the eye. Most people Omega ran into weren’t that lucky. He told me in loving detail just how very  _squishy_  each of the eyes felt in his hands as he gouged them out, the taste of the ocular fluid, the look of a face when one of the eye sockets is turned into ‘a bleeding maw of blind despair’.” She shook her head at her own impersonation of a terrible British accent. “His wording, not mine.” She paused for a moment, seeming to collect her thoughts, but York could see her eyes growing colder by the second. “He always had that thick, coppery smell on him when we’d get back from missions, and his hands would be completely coated in blood. He’d let it cake on him, mat his hair, and he wouldn’t bathe for days. It was almost like he was  _playing_. Like it was all just a game to him, and the goal was to get the most mutilation points. Omega always hated you the most, because you were the one that got away.”  
  
York didn’t realize he’d been shaking with suppressed anger until he felt a cool hand on the back of his neck. He knew it was Delta, trying to calm him down so he didn’t say something he’d regret, but the rage was blinding him worse than his injury. He closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths, trying to swallow, and he could feel Delta’s hand massaging the back of his neck surreptitiously. “You know,” he said slowly, trying to keep a tremor out of his voice, “if Delta’s right, technically, you’d be the reason I  _have_  one bad eye.”  
  
“No, actually, I’m the reason you still have any eyes at all,” she snipped. When York began to mouth ‘how,’ she interrupted the obvious question. “The Director had me on staff at the Academy, all right, but it was to corral Omega and bring him back after his inevitable breakouts.”  
  
It was hard to know who to believe. Apparently, the database was wrong, but so was Tex’s original assertion to him that she was completely innocent in all of this. He was more worried about her new revelations, though, to really care about her culpability. “So you’re telling me that Omega’s responsible for my face.” Tex nodded. “And you’re enlisting our help in the hopes of killing him.”  
  
“Oh, I’m going to kill him whether you help me or not,” she said quickly. “It’s just more efficient if I get a little help, that’s all.”  
  
She just didn’t want to admit it, York realized. She didn’t want to come out and actually say that this was a job that she couldn’t do on her own. “Let’s assume that Dee and I have agreed to help you – which we haven’t yet. What’s in it for us? And ‘an undying certainty that revenge was served’ doesn’t count,” he said when Tex opened her mouth.  
  
“I was going to say ‘revenge’,” she said sullenly, “but I suppose the fact that I have coffee, food, firearms, and a substantial amount of cash will have to be enough.”  
  
“Coffee,” York mused, finishing off his cup. “Could definitely use more of that.” It almost sounded like a good deal until he remembered what it was they were going to be rewarded for. “What do you think, Dee?”  
  
Delta’s hand closed like a claw on his shoulder, white-knuckled, betraying his tension. “Agent Texas poses a serious risk to any mission. The spontaneous defection of a Greek agent from his Freelancer handler can be catastrophic to both psyches.”  
  
York shrugged under Delta’s grip, trying to deflect Tex’s stare. “She seems okay to me.” He wanted to believe her, he really did, but usually Delta’s analyses were so accurate. Her personality didn’t seem to have changed, though, since their time together at Command.  
  
“Agent Wyoming sets a clear precedent for such cases,” Delta pointed out.  
  
Just hearing the name set his teeth on edge. “You don’t need to remind me, Dee.” Another added bonus: on their way to dealing with Omega, they’d probably be able to get rid of Wyoming as well. “Look, what’s your recommendation? We in or we out?” He wanted so badly to get revenge, to act like a real soldier again, but he wouldn’t do it without his partner’s consent.  
  
Delta paused for a moment; when York looked up, he was biting his lip. When he spoke, it was slow and deliberate. “Tactical matrix is incalculable. Outcome is uncertain. Chance of success is unknown. But…” Despite all those admittances, York could see the curl of a dangerous smirk starting at the corner of Delta’s mouth. “A little payback would be nice.”  
  
“We’re in,” York told Tex. If Delta was putting aside his previous animosity, it was too important to let this chance go.  
  
“Good. Here’s the plan.” She brought out her slate again.  
  
Delta matched her movements, though he seemed to have some misgivings. “We are following…  _your_  plan?”  
  
Great. It was getting tense again in here. “Uh, no offense, Tex,” he stuttered, “but usually Delta’s the brains here.”  
  
“Just download it to your slate so you can follow along,” Tex told Delta tersely. “It’s all rough anyway. We’ll be hammering out details later.” York looked over Delta’s shoulder as he pulled up Tex’s schematic, scanning over unfamiliar maps. “There’s a garage in New Mombasa that should have a few vehicles we can drive,” she explained. When another one loaded, she said, “This one is a supply shed where we can rendezvous on the way.”  
  
“How do we access this garage?” Delta asked, going back to that map and manipulating it to show a top-down view.  
  
Tex gave him a non-answer. “Creatively.”  
  
York raised an eyebrow. “Does ‘creatively’ mean what I think it means?”  
  
“If you think it means C4, then yes.” A quick peek in her bag confirmed that she had several blocks of the stuff, more than enough to take down the entire place.  
  
What York was more worried about, though, was the seeming lack of a central office. Usually he’d ransack one of those for keys to the cars – he didn’t know of another way to steal one. Delta, however, asked the question first. “How are we to acquire one of these vehicles?”  
  
Tex just grinned her slasher smile at York. “Have you ever hot-wired a Warthog before?”


	7. Chapter Seven: Headlong

“This was  _not_  how I was planning to learn this particular skill,” York griped as he hustled his way into the driver’s seat of a Warthog.  
  
After two days of bickering between Delta and Tex, here he was in the middle again, trying not to get shot at as he put the most important part of their plan in motion. Getting into the place had been easy enough, with Tex’s C4 and his own set of skills, but the resulting explosion had alerted every guard in the garage. The air now was full of the smell of gunpowder and charred concrete, reverberating with the layered percussion of so many guns being fired, and every so often there was a scream as someone died.  
  
Delta, for his part, was preoccupied, or York knew he would have had a snappy comeback for him as usual. He had his pistol close at hand, but his main focus was on his slate: his fingertips were working to hastily bring up a schematic as York stripped the paneling from around the Jeep’s ignition. “All right, I got to the tumbler, what next?” York shouted over the fray.  
  
“Attempt to trigger the ignition sequence manually,” Delta suggested. No sooner were the words out of his mouth than his pistol snapped up; it didn’t look like he’d aimed before he’d fired, but York watched his target fall immediately from a shot to the head.  
  
“What, like with…” He needed his picks and he needed them now. His nervous fingers fumbled in his bag, but he came up with a blank key. He could see the pin he needed to get to, but when he jammed the key inside and turned, there was nothing doing. “Dee, this isn’t working, I need a solution and I need it fast.”  
  
A few more taps and Delta was frowning at his screen again. “Find the two red wires, strip them, and twist them together.”  
  
“What the hell am I going to strip them with?” Delta wasn’t paying attention, though, and so York grumbled to himself as he pulled out a butterfly knife from his bag, the one with the sideways M in the handle. After he’d flicked it open, he tugged at the two wires and started taking off the plastic. “I really hope you know what we’re doing.”  
  
“Be careful,” Delta told him, not looking in his direction as he pinged down two more goons. Though one went down immediately, the other was only caught in the knee, and Delta tched to himself over the sound of his anguished scream. “Those wires are now live. Find the brown one, strip it,” and he was interrupted by another guard, gun snapping up in his direction.  
  
York did as he was told, though the number of volleys back and forth between his partner and the guard were beginning to bother him. “Here goes,” he sighed, touching all the wires together.  
  
The engine roared to life, and Delta finally caught the guard not paying attention; he was slumped over his barricade, staining it a delicate shade of red. “Cover the wires,” Delta yelled to him, and York fumbled for a roll of electrical tape. A wayward shot made both of them turn; Delta was the faster draw, but it was York’s shot that stuck. The tape left his fingers, and then it was Delta with his deft hands covering for York’s general mess.  
  
As Delta crawled into the driver’s seat, York went out to cover for him, battle rifle twitchy in his hands. The most he could do, given his aim, was force the guards after them to take cover, but it was better than leaving his partner unprotected while he messed with the car to get it to his specifications. Delta always drove, but he was taking too long for York’s taste. “Can you hurry it up a little?”  
  
“Done,” Delta announced. “Get in the back.”  
  
York stared at the massive six-barreled turret that took up the truckbed of the Jeep. He didn’t belong back there, and Delta knew it. “What am I gonna do back there?”  
  
“I believe the technical term for it is ‘spray and pray’,” Delta said with his perfect diction. “Now  _get in the back_.”  
  
“You could have just said you wanted cover fire,” York told him, shouldering his battle rifle and sticking his pistol in the waistband of his pants before climbing into the turret position.  
  
Almost as soon as he was settled, the Warthog lurched forward, its suspension keeping them jostled. It was all York could do to hang on to the handles as he figured out the controls – the turret was unusually loose, swinging any which way while he tried to get it to go where he wanted it to go. Once he managed it, though, everything became too easy. His arms thrummed with the raw power of the gun he was handling, the smell of spent casings wafted around him, and the limitless ammunition meant that he could spray everywhere just for cover and not fear that anyone would try to fight back.  
  
York had no idea how Delta knew where Tex was, but he suspected that he’d followed the noise of death and found her in the middle of it. Sure enough, she was in a melee with a group of guards, and as soon as she dispatched one, another would come for a beatdown. She was nothing but a blur of motion, a knee in a sternum, a fist in a throat, hands around a jaw as her arms twisted and snapped a neck, feet flurrying kicks into all manner of body parts.  
  
Before the Warthog had come to a full stop, York jumped out, battle rifle coming into his hands. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you never to hit a girl?” he yelled, hoping it was enough to draw their attention. At least half of the goons attacking Tex had heard him, which left the both of them with plenty of ass to kick in order to fight their way out of the garage.  
  
His blood was running high, but everything he’d ever learned came back to him like it was yesterday. He swung his battle rifle, hitting one grunt in the back of the head, before bringing it into another’s stomach on the backswing; the ‘oof’ sound let him know he’d hit his target, and he triggered a few rounds into the back of the goon who was bleeding from the scalp before kicking the one behind him in the crotch. The momentum sent that one heading backwards onto her ass, but by then a third guard had joined the fight, wrenching one of York’s arms and catching him at a disadvantage. Where York had him, though, was in the gun in his other hand – a short discharge and there was one more problem taken care of.  
  
“Trying to prove something?” Tex was almost being lazy with her prey, letting them bumble into one another and weaken themselves before she put the death blow on them.  
  
“Just to let you know,” York yelled out, breathing heavily as he brought an elbow down into a guard’s back and shooting blindly at the woman he’d laid out on the ground, “yes, this  _is_  a gun in my pants, and no, I am  _not_  happy to see you.”  
  
The guards weren’t coming as fast or as thick now, but the few who remained were tough as hell. York suffered a savage kick to the chest and was knocked to the ground, but he pulled the guard who’d kicked him down with him, twisting his ankle and grinning at the guard’s sharp cry of pain. York’s first shot hit the guard in the arm, the second in the chest, but he kept fighting, reaching for the pistol in his hip holster as he kicked York away. He was only a second from training his gun on York when an unexpected bullet came through the guard’s forehead, and York breathed a sigh of relief when he realized that Delta had saved his ass for the umpteenth time.  
  
Tex, however, was still busy: she was on her knees, keeping the last struggling guard in a headlock, about to pull out her finishing move and wring his neck. Before she could twist her hands, though, Delta’s pistol fired again, leaving a neat hole in the guard’s skull, blood steaming as it hit the air. York thought Tex would be thankful, but she rounded on Delta the moment she stood, bloody hands clenched into fists. “I’d call you a fucktard, but you’re supposed to be the logical one! What the hell is wrong with you? You could’ve killed me!”  
  
“I calculated the risk and found it acceptable,” Delta said coolly, ejecting the magazine from his gun. It clattered when it fell to the concrete floor of the garage, and he snapped another one into the butt of the pistol to take its place.  
  
“Listen, I’d love to stick around and watch the two of you duke it out,” York said, trying to pre-empt the fight that was brewing, “but we really need to get moving or we’re never going to get out of here.”  
  
They all headed back to the hot-wired Warthog, but there was an intense bit of silent bickering over who got to sit where. Tex and Delta seemed to be having a rock-paper-scissors battle using only their eyes, and when Delta snapped his gaze away first, Tex smirked and climbed into the driver’s seat. Before York could turn and get in the passenger’s side as he usually did, though, he felt Delta’s grip on his bicep. When he looked down, those disarmingly green eyes were staring back at him, almost as if he was asking for permission. When York nodded, he used the back wheel of the Warthog to vault himself into the back, huddling in the corner as he checked his ammunition. “In optimal conditions, I would prefer to have a Gauss cannon,” he grumbled.  
  
“Beggars can’t be choosers, Dee,” York reminded him, climbing into the car to sit next to Tex. It wasn’t a place he especially wanted to be, but at least she was on their side.  
  
“If you wanted a rocket launcher, all you had to do was ask,” Tex yelled over the revving of the engine. The car leapt forward, throttling like a cat on all fours, and most of the garage sped past them as they rushed out. They made a pit stop, though, at the guard facilities. “Take what you want, but we gotta get outta here!” she reminded them.  
  
It didn’t take long to grab a few weapons and some ammo. The Warthog’s suspension creaked as they brought everything back into the car, but they’d be safer this way. Besides, York mused, the way Delta was manhandling his rocket launcher as he inspected its body and slammed in his rockets was giving him thoughts that were too deliciously indecent to be put to words, especially knowing the kind of trouble they were about to get into. They hadn’t had sex in a car before…  
  
The thought got jostled out of his head as soon as Tex put the car in gear again, her feet mashing against the six pedals on the floor. Once they were on the streets of Old Mombasa, things were a little clearer, but York could already see police cruisers on their way to the now-demolished garage. No one pursued them out of the city limits, but as they headed east, Delta picked up on a problem. “We are heading away from the coast,” he yelled to the front of the car.  
  
“I know,” Tex told him, eyes focused on the road, jerking the wheel and jolting them around in their seats. “We have to go east to go west. They’ll catch us at the ferry if we don’t.”  
  
“Looks like they’ll catch us even if we do,” York interrupted, leveling his rifle at a blur he could see on the horizon. It was coming closer, and he saw Delta bringing up the viewfinder on his launcher, scanning it as it approached. A simple squeeze of the trigger, and York watched as the rocket streamed off, a trail of fire that detonated just short of its target. It was enough to trip the other vehicle, which flipped over itself in mid-air, and when it came down, charred and obliterated, it and its passengers didn’t move again.  
  
“We are being followed,” Delta announced coolly, leveling his rockets again and bracing himself against the back of York’s seat so that the propulsion wouldn’t kick him back too far. As it was, the discharge of his next rocket left him flat on his back, hair blown back from his face and shoulders slumped.  
  
York whistled when the rocket hit its mark, a vehicle exploding in a ball of orange and white. “Oh, please,” he teased Delta as his partner got back to his feet, reloading his weapon. “It’s pronounced  _we’ve got company_.”  
  
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, another Warthog jumped out, seemingly out of nowhere, and jostled against the side of their car. “Son of a –” Tex managed to get out before the other Jeep slammed into them again. “Where the hell did these guys come from?”  
  
York snapped up his rifle and caught one of the passengers in the throat, and his follow-through pinned down their gunner so that the turret was free. The driver, though, was still in motion, slamming against them again and again, trying to get them to crash. Tex, of course, wasn’t having that; she brought up a pistol, and several shots later, the other driver was slumped over the wheel. “Tex!” York called out to her, and at the sound of her name, she turned her attention back to steering their own Jeep, narrowly avoiding a rock outcropping. “Jesus.”  
  
“If you even think about cracking a joke about women drivers, I will feed you your own colon,” she muttered darkly.  
  
She was cut off, though, by the ratatat of shots coming from the now-stopped car that had been ramming them. Shots were flying through the windshield, and he and Tex ducked in the front seats. “Delta!” York yelled, panicking. Had he managed to get down in time?  
  
Another blast of shots rang out from the back of their own car, and then the rapport stopped. “Terminated,” Delta announced from the back, stepping down from the turret and bringing his rocket launcher to his shoulder again.  
  
But after a tense five minutes, there were no more shadows in the distance. York let himself relax. He could feel Delta back-to-back with him, slumping against the back of his seat. For her part, Tex was staring ahead, barely blinking, mind obviously somewhere else. Her gaze was murderous. Interrupting her to ask what she was thinking about would probably mean that he’d get punched in the throat for even attempting to speak, and York wasn’t about to give up his snarking privileges just yet. Instead, he asked, “How long?”  
  
“A few hours, then we’ll have to cross the channel by Hornet,” Tex told him, grip on the steering wheel only intensifying. “We’ll have time to stock up before –”  
  
“No, stop, wait, go back,” York interrupted her. “Hornet? You’re – you’re joking.”  
  
Tex smirked, looking at him sideways. “Somebody’s afraid of heights.”  
  
“I’m not afraid of heights!” York insisted. “I have a legitimate and very human fear of falling to my death.”  
  
“Fine, you’ll drive,” Tex grumbled. “Not like you don’t know the coordinates.”  
  
“Dee, are you gonna be okay flying shotgun?” York asked over his shoulder.  
  
He could feel Delta’s shrug through the back of his seat. “It is more efficient to have two sighted passengers.”  
  
“Point taken.”  
  
“Do you even know how to pilot one of those?” Tex asked, voice dripping with condescension.  
  
“Yes, now try not to faint,” York sniped back at her. He rummaged in his bag, then managed to hand her a mangled foil pack. “Protein bar?” The disgusted look on her face was priceless, and he passed it to Delta instead.  
  
The rest of the drive was tense as always, but York suspected it was less from the anticipation of an outside threat and more from the ever-present animosity between Tex and Delta. He supposed he should be glad that the two of them hadn’t tried to kill each other outright. The pistol scare, though, had been completely unnecessary. He’d have to talk to Delta about that later. Right now, he was too concerned with doing the math to make sure he could get enough ammo for their assault on the island.  
  
Because as much as he hated it, now that they were at the supply shed, they were only halfway done with their suicidal run. He’d had too many close calls as it was; his side was stiffening from his brawl, and he was sure he was bleeding in places he didn’t care to think about. None of them were going to make it through this unscathed, he was sure.  
  
One thing at a time, though, and so he rummaged through the magazines available to them in the shed and crammed as many as he could into his bag. “Getting dark,” Tex pointed out from next to him.  
  
“How many weapons are you planning on bringing?” York asked, incredulous. She was currently in the process of loading a wide-loop bandolier with grenades and strapping all manner of holsters to her body.  
  
“I like to have my options open.” She punctuated the statement with the click-click-click of sliding cartridges into a shotgun.  
  
“The Hornet does have a gun on it,” he pointed out.  
  
“Which you will not use lest you draw undue attention to us,” Delta told him.  
  
“Oh, come on,” York protested, manually loading another magazine. “I’d help clear some ground before you guys could land.”  
  
“A silent approach is optimal under these conditions. We do not wish for them to notice our arrival,” he explained. When York looked to his partner, he was threading together sniper cartridges to complement the gun already strapped to his back.  
  
“I think I’m starting to get the picture.” Now that he was weighted down with as much ammo as he could handle, York cast an eye around the rest of the shed. Besides the Hornet that was presumably under the tarp in the corner, there were the shelves of ammo that they were currently raiding, plus med packs and crate upon crate of food – real food, not just the dehydrated protein he and Delta had been eating since they’d run. “Are we making supply runs once we’re settled, or are we bringing it now?”  
  
“No idea how long we’ll be there,” Tex admitted, strapping a throat mic to her neck. “Shouldn’t take longer than a few weeks, and there’s enough here for half a year.”  
  
“A few – I was under the impression,” York spat, “that this would be a quick in-and-out job.”  
  
“Speed is relative,” Delta reminded him in that infuriatingly professional tone. “I believe that ‘quick’ in this sense may mean that there is a good probability that this mission will be concluded within the week.”  
  
“Good.” He was starting to regret this whole getting-ingratiated-with-Tex deal, and the sooner he could break away, the better.  
  
Tex ripped away the tarp covering the Hornet, and for a moment, the shed was nothing but dust. When it settled, she moved onto the platform on the right side of the cockpit – very respectful of her, considering that she must have known that York liked to keep Delta on his left. “This is the last chance you have to back out of this,” she warned.  
  
“The hell I will,” York gritted out. Just looking at her was enough to make his bad eye twitch. “How many hours of darkness we got, Dee?”  
  
“Ten more.” He went to flank the other side of the cockpit, green eyes flicking to him for reassurance.  
  
York just sighed. “Can’t waste any more time, then.” He climbed into the cockpit, and the Hornet started coming alive for him, all levers and buttons and holographic charts. Flipping a few switches made the propellers start whirling. “Test, test, one, two.”  
  
“I read you,” Delta confirmed, adam’s apple bobbing against his throat mic.  
  
“ _Test, test_ ,” Tex mocked him. “Seriously?”  
  
“I’ll take that as a ‘loud and clear,  _sir_ ’,” he mocked her right back. “Take-off in five, four, three…”  
  
He’d forgotten about the roof on the shed, but it blasted off clean enough when he zoomed straight off the floor. “Real classy there,” he could hear through Tex’s channel.  
  
“No one asked you,” York grumbled. He found the operations for the vehicle’s turrets easily enough. “You sure I shouldn’t use these?”  
  
“Yes,” Delta reiterated in a long-suffering tone.  
  
“Fine, fine.” He nudged at a lever, and the little craft throttled to the beach and crossed over open water. “Let’s fly.”


	8. Chapter Eight: Long Night of Solace

For the second time in fifteen minutes, the discharge of Delta’s sniper rifle jarred York out of a light doze. It was the middle of the night, and the Hornet was stable, so he felt perfectly justified in trying to sleep, but Tex was pissed off about it, if the static coming through her radio feed was any indication. “Are you sleeping in there, York? We’re trying to infiltrate an island stronghold and you’re  _falling asleep_? Delta, tell him –”  
  
York muted her channel. She’d done nothing but complain since he’d set them in this position two hours before. “Where we at, Dee?” he asked through a yawn.  
  
“Five enemies remaining.” His voice was a whisper through his channel, tense and troubled. Though he looked perfectly still and composed, York knew how tightly-wound his partner could get in battle simulations.  
  
Another report startled York out of his seat in the cockpit. His zoom lens was an older model, but he could still see well enough through the beat-up green-tinted visor. An already broken formation was scattering even further; the soldier Delta had just gunned down was being covered by someone else’s jacket. Knowing Delta’s aim, there was probably a dime-sized hole in the guy’s forehead and a hole the size of a dinner plate where his amygdala had been.  
  
Delta’s voice jarred him out of his sleepy reverie. “Move us one hundred meters along a one-hundred-thirty-degree vector.”  
  
“Why?” York snapped back before he could stop himself. It wasn’t his fault if he was a little cranky – he knew he wouldn’t be resting until dawn.  
  
“If I fire another shot from our current location, ground forces will be able to triangulate our position.”  
  
“Damn it!” His curse was a reflex, and he bit down any other impatient words that had been rising in his mind. “Are we visible?” He could see, out of the corner of his eye, the grim way Delta was hanging on to the side of the Hornet as he maneuvered it as he’d been told. His face was drawn, his eyes sunken – it was the first time York had ever seen him so exhausted. All of them were paying the price tonight. “Sorry,” he said quickly, correcting their position. “You’re doing a great job. Still have four hours of darkness. You can do this, Dee.”  
  
They made eye contact through the window of the cockpit; Delta nodded, then went right back to work, discarding a used magazine and replacing it before leveling the sniper rifle back to his eye.  
  
Tex’s channel display was going haywire; York un-muted her. “We don’t have time for sweet nothings, York. We need to get established down there by dawn.”  
  
“How many reinforcements, Tex?” he asked her pointedly. He had to keep everyone focused or all of them were going to fly off the handle.  
  
“Two squads, twenty each. Won’t be called yet, I’m jamming their signal, but it won’t take long for them to make a workaround.” Another loud report from Delta cut off the beginning of her next sentence, but she continued, “…south side, on the beach, below those rocks. I’ll be going ahead. You and Delta need to stick behind and cover until I give the signal.”  
  
“Which will be…?”  
  
“Flare gun. Green smoke.” At least Delta would appreciate that, and York let himself smile.  
  
“And I still can’t use the turret?” he joked.  
  
“You still can’t use the turret,” Tex said in that long-suffering tone, but it was clear she was teasing him right back. “We’ll set up behind one of the outcroppings so we’ll have cover from the Installation and also be able to spy on ‘em right back.”  
  
Another report, and Delta announced, “One enemy remaining.”  
  
“Good luck with that.” York whistled as he watched his zoom display. The last member of the ground forces was flailing his arms as he dashed like mad to the monolith on the horizon. Not only were his movements erratic, but he was also quickly getting out of range.  
  
“Closer,” Delta instructed him. “Above the beach. Fifty meters from ground level.”  
  
“Once he’s done, we’re touching down,” Tex announced.  
  
“Where is it that you want me to land this thing, anyway?” he griped, steering as best as he could to where Delta wanted to be.  
  
“There. Underneath that shelf.” York looked over and followed her pointing finger to the overhang just below them.  
  
His attention only had to lapse for two seconds for the Hornet to start buffering around in the wind. “Stabilize the craft,” Delta insisted, and there was a thud as his slight body fell against the hull, buffeted by the turbulence. “I am already having difficulty correcting for wind.”  
  
“Oh, my bad,” York said sarcastically, hands in a white-knuckled grip on the controls. “I’m only having trouble stabilizing  _because of the damn wind_.”  
  
The scream that had been echoing off of the monolith was interrupted by Delta’s next shot and didn’t continue; somehow, Delta had still hit his mark. “Down, take us  _down!_ ” Tex screamed, her pitch creating a gross, ringing interference on her channel.  
  
The gusts from the beach were terrible, and York had to fight all the way to get the little Hornet to rest underneath the rock shelf. Tex hopped off before he was at ground level, obviously anxious to engage; her shotgun was already up to her eyes, her trigger finger twitching, head snapping back and forth as she scanned for the enemy. As soon as York felt the craft touch the ground, he killed the power – didn’t want to draw undue attention to the engine noise. They’d have enough problems as it was.  
  
Delta was at his side the moment York opened the cockpit, looking a little worse for wear but still determined and focused. “You heard her, right?” York asked him.  
  
“We stay back and provide cover fire,” Delta reiterated. He threw aside his sniper rifle and his unneeded magazines, checking to see that his pistol was still properly armed.  
  
“Remind me to thank you once this is over,” York murmured, fumbling for his battle rifle – it had jostled somewhere around the foot pedals while he was in the air.  
  
To his surprise, when he brought his head back up, Delta leaned forward to catch his lips in a quick but ardent kiss. When he pulled back, York was comforted by the sight of his partner’s gorgeous green eyes. “This is thanks enough,” he whispered, breath warm against his face, teeth flashing in a small smile.  
  
The kiss was like a shot of adrenaline to his heart. With that, York could forget the exhaustion of the hours of assault that had brought them here. And just in case the kiss hadn’t been enough, a nearby volley of shots jolted him out of his fleeting moment of romance with Delta, leaving both of them on high alert. “Here we go,” York sighed.  
  
He gladly took Delta’s offered arm to get himself out of the cockpit. It was too dark for him to see properly, so he brought up the scope of his rifle to see where the shots had come from. Before he could gauge the location, though, Delta’s hand closed clawlike around his wrist, and he was dragged forward at a speed that threatened to dislocate his shoulder. “Down!” Delta hissed, yanking him to the ground near a rock shelf large enough to cover the both of them.  
  
York’s face was planted, but he could still practically feel the whoosh of the bullets that had just missed his body. His mouth tasted of dirt and sand; he spit as he pushed himself up. “Cover, cover!” he cried to Delta, crawling behind the rock and willing his partner to join him.  
  
Of course, his partner was already on it, his pistol trained on figures York couldn’t quite make out. Delta’s night vision must have been excellent, because York could hear a distinctive heavy, wet thud with each impact of his bullets. Delta, however, didn’t sound so impressed when he came to York’s side, replacing his empty magazine with a full one. “Merely incapacitated,” he spit out, and his shots were answered by a quick but inaccurate ratatat from the troops now lying prostrate from Delta’s fire. York could hear the ping of each bullet as it hit the other side of the shelf where his head might have been, and he could practically see the ones zooming above his head.  
  
It was nowhere near dawn yet, but the island was lighting up with cool blues and a faint tinge of orange. Something was on fire; York could smell gasoline, gunpowder, smoke. Looking over the ledge of the rock shelf, his good eye caught a flash of black silhouetted against the white, but the figure was a blur in the shimmer of heat. Or maybe that was because it was moving too fast, because Tex certainly had her hands full. These were no ordinary troops: they’d obviously been trained to handle any infiltration by Project Freelancer staff, and so they were putting up a huge fight for her. York could hear her shotgun blasting over and over, but somehow the soldiers kept coming back for more. “We have to help her,” York muttered, hands clenching tighter on his rifle.  
  
“Cover fire,” Delta reminded him. He reached over the shelf, let off three shots, came back down. His face was smeared with dirt and soot, a little trail of sweat cutting through, and his hands were shaking around the butt of his gun; he was running on nothing but fear, even if he didn’t recognize the feeling.  
  
York thought his partner had never looked sexier than he did right now. “They down?” Delta’s response was a wicked grin, an affirmation if there ever was one. “You’re amazing,” York breathed, voice thick with gratitude. “If we get through this –”  
  
“When we get through this,” Delta automatically corrected him.  
  
“ _When_  we get through this,” York started over, “I am going to thank you. In fact,” he promised, “I am going to thank you  _so hard_  –”  
  
“Fire in the hole!” a strange voice yelled over York’s, and the rest of it was drowned out in a hiss. A wave of dread washed over York. He could hear Tex screaming “ _Grenade!_ ” in the distance; he reached out for Delta without even thinking about it, pulling him closer, protecting him with his body.   
  
There must have been a bang, but all York registered was a ringing in his ears. Even his bones felt like they were thrumming with the explosion. Below him, he could see Delta’s mouth moving, but only barely; the vision in his left eye was totally gone, and his remaining vision was blurry and faded. He’d been through this before, but not recently, and so it took him a moment to recover. Blinking, shaking his head, he counted his heartbeats but lost track around forty-something, when he finally processed that Delta was yelling his name. “York! Can you hear me?” He nodded, still dazed even as his senses came back to him. “You have been injured. Remain still.”  
  
There was no reason for Delta to be fishing in his bag like that. “Oh, get out of there,” he joked, knowing what he was looking for. “It’s not that ba- _aaaaaaaaaaagh!_ ” It trailed off into an anguished note when he tried to move his arm to swat Delta’s hand away from things that didn’t belong to him.  
  
“I instructed you to remain still,” Delta chided him, an eyebrow raised, still keeping his ephemeral cool even in the heat around him.  
  
“Yeah, well,” York muttered through gritted teeth. The pain was centered on his shoulder, and when he touched it, his fingers came away glossy with blood.  
  
“A laceration,” Delta informed him. The smell of war hovered thick around them, dark and singed and metallic. York heard a ripping sound – the seam holding Delta’s sleeve onto his turtleneck. It was the perfect makeshift bandage, the way Delta tied it like that over the wound. The second-skin material was flexible enough to make for an effective tourniquet and absorbent enough to keep York’s hands from getting too slippery.  
  
Delta wasn’t done searching his bag, though. “Oh no you don’t,” York argued with him when he finally saw what he’d pulled out. “That – that’s completely unnecessary, Dee, don’t –”  
  
His protests were cut off when the strange shiny pod in Delta’s hand attached itself to his neck, digging in a dozen tiny needles to start dispersing the multiple chemicals inside. “We still have a sufficient number of healing units to last through this mission,” Delta assured him.  
  
“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” He moved his injured arm experimentally: pain, but buried too deep under morphine and adrenaline for York to get a good hold on it. It would be good enough for now, as long as he wasn’t too out of it to be useful. “How we doin’?”  
  
Delta had used his opportunity to get in York’s bag to boot up their motion tracker. “Eleven of twenty eliminated. Six flanking us in pattern Sierra-II. Two beyond the range of the scanner, reporting back to the Installation using transmission protocol echo bravo three-three-niner.” Echo bravo – so they were working with Project Freelancer somehow. Even more imperative, then, that all of them get in and out unscathed.  
  
York did a quick mental calculation. “That’s nineteen. What about the last guy?”  
  
“Engaging Agent Texas.” Brave or stupid, then. York hoped for stupid; it would make taking out the flank easier. “Twelve of twenty eliminated,” Delta corrected himself.  
  
“Flank’s gonna shift to pattern Sierra-I unless we can do something about it,” York pointed out. He wasn’t particularly keen on moving, but he refused to be dead weight for the rest of the mission. Give it a few minutes and he could be back on his feet, provided he wouldn’t fall back on his ass.  
  
“The one who threw the grenade is on the near side.” Delta sounded impartial, but York could see a dangerous flash in his eyes and a malicious smirk at the corner of his mouth. It was almost as if he were asking York’s permission.  
  
They didn’t need to coordinate to a countdown; they were of one mind now, a single battle machine housed in two bodies. They passed by a grenade launcher, and even as York was reaching out his hand for it, Delta grabbed it and aimed it at the other prong of the flank. As the grenade exploded, it forced two of the soldiers out of formation, and the three that they were flanking had their backs to them as they tried to coordinate with their fellows.  
  
York took his chance and shot one in the back, two quick rounds of his rifle; she didn’t get up again. Another was calling for reinforcements on his radio, but not for long – Delta flicked out a butterfly knife by twirling it over his thumb, blade shining orange in the fire of the night, and had the edge of it horizontally against the guy’s adam’s apple by the time he was trying to squeak out his coordinates. Delta didn’t say anything as he held him immobile, but his green eyes were hard, searching York for consent. “Please,” the man was whimpering, “please.”  
  
“That’s him,” York confirmed. Even through the cloud of medication fogging his system, he could still recognize the voice that had called out for their deaths.  
  
Delta didn’t waste any time: he pushed the man’s head towards his chest and his throat towards his knife, drawing his elbow back, and two seconds later, the man was effectively silenced and bleeding to death. The two of them closed in on the third enemy together – York’s shots were enough to cripple, but Delta delivered the final blow, his knife piercing into his sternum. When York looked over, he could see that his partner’s hands were completely coated in blood, none of it his own, and they trembled as he pulled out the knife and folded it away. Though he was shaking, his voice was still perfectly even, if quiet, when he announced, “Fifteen of twenty eliminated.”  
  
He made as if to get up and leave, but York pulled him down by the shoulder. “Dee, look at me.” His eyes were still flinty and there was a scowl of determination still hovering around his mouth. “Are you okay?”  
  
“There are still five enemies remaining,” he announced, trying to shrug out of York’s hold.  
  
York wasn’t about to let go. “Dee, you need to calm down.”  
  
“You are interrupting my immersion.”  
  
“I don’t care what you call it.” York could practically feel Delta’s entire body thrumming under his hand, vibrating with unused energy; his eyes seemed to glow from within. “You need to snap out of it. You’re scaring me.”  
  
“There is no cause for fear. I am merely dedicating my focus towards eliminating our opponents.” He sounded annoyed, and he wouldn’t meet York’s concerned gaze.  
  
York dug in his fingers harder, earning himself a throb up his arm to his injured shoulder. “Look at me.” When Delta didn’t turn his head, he brought his hand to his chin and manually turned it so he could look into his eyes. “It’s okay.  _He’s dead_. You can stop –”  
  
“I am physically unable to revert until every enemy is eliminated!” Delta screamed at him, hoarse from exertion. It was plain to York, from the set of his eyebrows and the tension still in his body, that he was rabidly afraid of his own capabilities. What in the hell had they done to him at that Academy?  
  
“Well – !” It was plain that Delta wasn’t calming down. “If you’re still gonna be so worked up, let’s put it to use, okay? Where’s the other three from this squad?”  
  
Delta pointed out the location with a nod of his head. “They are losing formation.”  
  
“Then let’s go!” He leapt up before he lost his nerve, and Delta followed him, still overfull with that terrifying homicidal energy. Delta hardly seemed aware of his environment, didn’t seem to notice that he was stepping over corpses, or that the fire on the horizon was drawing closer, or that the air was scorching hot by now, or that they hadn’t heard from Tex in too long. When York looked over at him, there was a singular focus in his eyes, and his hands were steady again as they brought out his pistol.  
  
Delta got there first, since he was uninjured; he didn’t hesitate in aiming between the eyes of the first soldier whose head popped over the makeshift crate barricade. The other two scattered at that, running in opposite directions, but York knew that their innate coordination would make bringing them down easier. “Stay,” Delta reinforced to him, chasing the one that was running faster.  
  
The slower one, as it turned out, was injured, favoring a gaping wound in her right side. This must have been the one Delta had hit with the grenade launcher. He didn’t have to impress anyone, so he went for the easy kill, aiming for her back instead of her head. She went down immediately, letting out a sharp cry, and she didn’t get up again.  
  
When he looked over, Delta was still pursuing the other soldier, firing sporadically whenever the guy stumbled. The other guy didn’t even realize that Delta was chasing him in a gigantic circle, trying to pin him up against a rock face and leave him with nowhere to run. Even when Delta nicked him in the leg, he still kept running, stumbling a little and perhaps favoring his leg but still intent on getting away. It wasn’t until he was trapped up against a narrow part of a gully that he realized he had nowhere to run, dodging each one of Delta’s pistol shots. York was at Delta’s side as soon as he could reach him, but it didn’t stop his partner from coldly dispatching the soldier with a shot through his temple. The sides of the gully were painted with blood as he fell onto his face.  
  
Before Delta could start pursuing the last two soldiers, though, York reached out for the wrist of his pistol hand, holding him still. “Where the hell is Tex?” She was probably fine, but it was disconcerting not to have heard from her in so long. Had she gone into the same bloodlust Delta had, irrevocably destroying anything in her path?  
  
Delta checked their motion tracker. “Engaging the last two enemy troops. Signal is disrupted. Unclear whether Installation command has identified us.”  
  
York’s heart twisted in his chest. “How much do you think got through?”  
  
“It appears they had only just begun transmitting.”  
  
“That doesn’t mean anything. They could just know there’s three people here who shouldn’t be, or they could have full profiles on every one of us by now.”  
  
Delta glared at him, effectively shutting him up while he drew out his slate and booted it up. His fingers moved quickly to bring up the information he wanted, and he bit his lip as he worked, but eventually, he looked back up at York. “The transmission indicated only one infiltrator before it was truncated.”  
  
York let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “She’s  _good_ ,” he breathed to himself. “She doing all right with those two?”  
  
“Which two?”  
  
She’d been standing right behind them – for how long, York couldn’t say. “Everybody dead?”  
  
“Just about.” To York’s look of confusion, she clarified, “There’s one still bleeding out, but I’m pretty sure he isn’t getting back up.”  
  
“No reinforcements?” Delta asked her.  
  
“Not tonight,” she told him. “They’re going to need that squad of twenty in reserve for when we really get down to business.”  
  
Delta’s posture immediately changed. He was still full of drive, York could tell, but he’d come out of his war-trance as soon as Tex had told him that his efforts weren’t needed. And York knew exactly what he could do to work the rest of his energy. He could run on adrenaline and the jolt from the healing unit for long enough to thank Delta properly for all he’d done for him tonight. “Listen, I’d love to stick around and help,” he told Tex, reaching out for Delta’s hand, “but there’s something we kind of need to take care of.” Once Delta’s fingers were laced with his, he knew he couldn’t go back on this, even if he’d wanted to. “We’re, uh,” he fumbled as Delta started dragging him forcefully away from his conversation with Tex, “we’ll be, uh, unpacking the Hornet if you need us – just start setting up without us, we’ll join you later…”  
  
He knew Tex’s eyes were on the two of them as they stalked back towards the shore, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. She already knew. In fact, he could probably traumatize her with overshare if he tried hard enough. And so he let his suppressed smirk spread across his face. Once the sun came up again, they’d have survived to fight another day.


	9. Chapter Nine: Binary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buttsex

They’d hardly made it out of Tex’s eyesight when Delta yanked York toward him and kissed him fiercely. “Excessive – ” another brutal kiss – “adrenalin, my greatest apologies –” he pulled him back in the direction of the Hornet, but stopped every few paces to cling to him again, pressing their mouths together as if he couldn’t bear to pull himself away – “although now would be an excellent opportunity to thank me for my assistance,” he finished cheekily.  
  
“If you ever say you’re sorry again for jumping me like this,” York threatened, no force behind his words but laughter, “I’m just going to have to teach you better.” Truth be told, he was just as riled up from the battle as his partner, and his  _oof_  as his back slammed against the side of the Hornet was as much from arousal as surprise.  
  
It was when Delta started to strip him that an ugly sound started tearing its way out of his throat. Even the healing unit couldn’t disguise that much raw pain flooding his nerves as Delta peeled away the fabric strip he’d used to bind off York’s wound. When he looked down, his shoulder was cut with ribbons of shiny scar tissue; the blood on his arm had scabbed over, and it itched as Delta pulled off his turtleneck. “Exsanguination is no longer a factor,” he noted before his mouth descended on York’s again. “Possibility of gangrene or severe infection averted.”  
  
“Shut up,” York mumbled good-naturedly, sticking his tongue in Delta’s mouth to make him stop talking. It worked, and marvelously; Delta sucked on the tip of it just that slightest bit, enough to make him weak at the knees. “You do realize how deeply  _unsexy_  that was?”  
  
York could taste Delta’s teasing smile. “You remain aroused.” For emphasis, he palmed roughly over the bulge in York’s pants.  
  
His comeback got bitten off into a moan when Delta shoved him backwards and he landed in the pilot’s seat of the Hornet. “Mmm – must be a masochist,” he purred as Delta crawled onto his lap, shedding his shirt along the way.  
  
“If I had been informed that you gained sexual pleasure from painful stimulation, I would have incorporated it into our encounters long before now.” Delta punctuated his remark by digging his nails into York’s other shoulder.  
  
It was easy for York to forget the way Delta interpreted jokes like that. “Not  _literally_ , Dee.” The dull ache in his shoulder was keeping York from using that arm to touch and tease Delta, and he resented his body for that. It felt like he was falling apart day by day, and this injury was just one more sign. If anything, he hated the pain for intruding on what could have been the best sex he ever had.  
  
Delta was considerate, though, and avoided agitating him too much as he stripped him of the rest of his clothes. York hadn’t been paying attention to when Delta had become naked, but their bare cocks were bumping against each other as Delta’s hand tangled in his hair and brought his mouth close again. York reached down a hand, taking both of them in his grip at once, and the sharp cry from Delta’s throat reverberated in his own chest. “Exaggeration as humor?” Delta asked him breathlessly.  
  
How could he even keep up with a conversation? York felt like the lid had been blown off his skull, especially with the way Delta was subconsciously pulling at his hair with every stroke of his hand. “Kinda,” was the best he could come up with given the circumstances. “Makes me feel alive. Means I made it.”  
  
“This is real.” It was a continuation of his own thought, said so quietly that York took it for granted that it was still just in his head, but then the same voice said “breathe” just when he realized he’d been choking on his own tongue trying not to groan. “Your vital statistics are elevated.”  
  
York laughed into Delta’s mouth. “Dee, I’m wounded and I’m about to have sex. I’d be more worried if they  _weren’t_.”  
  
To his surprise, Delta actually stopped what he was doing and pulled back slightly. “Are you certain that you are capable of this type of vigorous activity?”  
  
“I don’t care.” York just adjusted his grip and upped his speed, delighting in Delta’s gasp, the little backwards tip of his head that left his adam’s apple vulnerable, the flutter in his eyelashes as he gave himself over to the sensation. “I said I’d thank you, and damn it, I’m going to  _thank you_.” Hopefully so hard he wouldn’t be able to talk straight for the next week or so.  
  
“This is not the sole method at my disposal for alleviating this adrenalin rush,” Delta reminded him, but his statement only seemed half-hearted, given that his hands and his mouth were still roaming everywhere on York’s body.  
  
“Don’t stop…” As if he would, with the way he was thrusting against York’s hand with every kiss he left on bare skin.  
  
Delta reached over and behind him, pressing his body close to York’s as he searched through the clutter in the cockpit. York took the opportunity to lick along Delta’s neck, the taste of musk on his tongue, and he twisted his wrist just a little on an upstroke. The way Delta ground against him as he found what he was looking for was unintentional but erotic all the same. Then York realized what his partner was holding: a gun-shaped syringe with a spray bandage cartridge inside. There was no warning before Delta sprayed the foam onto his shoulder, and York hissed as a cool tingle ran along the deep gouges of his wound. “Do you require an analgesic?”  
  
“It’s not that bad,” York insisted, though he was muttering the words through gritted teeth. “I’m just being a wuss about it.”  
  
“Then an adjuvant is necessary.” And Delta let his hands wander again, one capping the grip York had on their cocks and smearing their pre, the other smoothing over his neck as he gently nibbled his ear.  
  
The pain was fading away with every touch. “Or you could just distract me like this,” he murmured, working his hand in tandem with Delta’s.  
  
“I am here to assist.” York heard  _your wish is my command_ , but the way Delta was nudging his hand away from their cocks didn’t match what he’d said. Delta seemed to be able to read his mind, though, because he reassured him, “I intend to  _fully_  divert your attention and otherwise occupy your physical energy.”  
  
York moaned against Delta’s skin, distraught at the lack of contact. “C’mon, I need this –  _you_  need this – I gotta –” And all his words fell out of his head as Delta sank down onto him, no prep, just tight, clenching heat around his cock, fingers petting the back of his neck to comfort him, thighs tensing around his waist. “Oh,  _God_ ,” he breathed, “thank you thank you  _thank you_ …”  
  
“Is this adequate?” Delta asked him quietly, refusing to move once he’d situated himself.  
  
“It’s good – it’s  _too_  good.” He couldn’t get enough air, sharp gasps and harsh sighs heating the skin of Delta’s neck under his mouth.  
  
And then Delta  _moved_ , rocking against him smoothly. “Breathe,” his partner said, arching back just the slightest bit. “Remember to breathe.”  
  
The way he was leaning gave York the most enticing view he’d ever seen, and he drank it in as Delta continued to grind onto him. Delta’s skin was lit by more than just the orange of the petrol fires; the sun was creeping up gradually, tinting everything rosy, peachy, warm. York was enthralled even with the simple bead of sweat running down his neck, pausing at Delta’s adam’s apple just before it moved as he swallowed. His eyes were shut, his mouth half-open, and with every movement he ever-so-slightly scrunched his face, the look of concentration never leaving it. It was amazing how determined Delta looked, how seriously he was treating this task. “God, you’re  _gorgeous_ , Dee,” he whispered, reaching out with his good hand to sweep Delta’s sweat-soaked hair away from his face.  
  
Delta turned his head into the touch, and York guided their mouths together again, their sighs simultaneous every time Delta sank down as far as he could. It was slow and gentle and sure; they were both fatigued from the firefights, they were both more than a little banged up, and they both hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. That didn’t mean it wasn’t good. In fact, it was perfect. It was everything York didn’t know he wanted, and the little noises in Delta’s throat let him know how much his partner was into this, too.  
  
This was new, this was different, and it couldn’t have been any better, the moment blurred into pure emotion with the delirium of sleeplessness and the pain-high endorphins and the barrage of sensations raining down on York all at once. York’s fingers tangled in Delta’s overlong curls, holding him in place so he could rest their foreheads together, and they shared each ragged breath. “Together?” he whispered.  
  
“Yes,” Delta hissed back. The hand that wasn’t cradling York’s neck reached between them to grasp at his cock; York watched him work at himself with deliberately calculated strokes.  
  
They didn’t need a mark or a timer or a countdown – they just knew. It had been building up for so long, steady heat instead of a sharp spark, and so York was taken by surprise when it all finally proved to be too much, the sound in his chest a rumbling groan as he thrust up in a sudden, jerking spasm. “ _Now_ ,” he insisted.  
  
And it was almost like Delta had been waiting for that very word to slip past his lips, because the clench around him as he pulsed became that much tighter. York cried out against Delta’s shoulder, half-sobbing from exhaustion and agony and relief, all of it saturating this deep, primal connection with his partner as they came simultaneously.  
  
It took a moment for him to come back to himself, breathing hard against Delta’s slight weight as he slumped over his chest. Delta’s head was resting on his good shoulder and his eyes were closed; if York didn’t know better, he’d think he was sleeping. “Wake up,” he teased, jostling his arm. But his eyes didn’t even flutter, and his breathing was slow and shallow. Oh, God, had he passed out on him or had an aneurysm or a heart attack or something? “Wake up, Dee, please, God…”  
  
Delta’s eyes opened slowly, half-lidded and bright green. “Good,” he mumbled.  
  
York sighed with relief. “You scared me there for a minute. C’mon, get off,” he said gently, hand on Delta’s hip to show he meant it. Delta pulled away with only the barest of disgusting squelching noises and flopped back down onto York’s lap as soon as he’d fully disengaged. “That tired?”  
  
“You successfully purged the adrenalin from my system,” he said by way of explanation.  
  
“And you just got me to ignore this.” York nodded towards his shoulder wound.  
  
Delta nuzzled against his neck, clearly falling asleep again already. “Move your arm.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Is your hearing still damaged from the blast?”  
  
York couldn’t tell whether Delta was being sarcastic, disparaging, or concerned. Honesty was always the best policy with him, though. “No, I just don’t want to move it. It  _hurts_.”  
  
“Residual endorphins, along with the topical anesthetic in the spray bandage, should be enough to block your synapses and blunt your pain receptors.”  
  
York felt too tired to move at all, the ache of weariness somewhere deep in his joints, but he shrugged his shoulder just the same – and felt a slight irritation, an uncomfortable tugging of tightly-knitted scar-skin, but nothing that he would call searing pain. “Not bad.”  
  
“Given the tools at hand, this was the best possible outcome.” When Delta’s fingers came up to rest in the grooves now permanently etched into his shoulder, the sensation was dulled, but everything was still intact.  
  
It was hard to put his gratitude into words, but he had to try. “I love you.” He nudged aside Delta’s fringe with his nose so he could kiss him on the forehead. “I feel like I don’t tell you enough. I love you.”  
  
“There is no need for you to repeat a sentiment that I already understand, appreciate, and reciprocate.” But he snuggled closer all the same.  
  
“It’s for emphasis,” York told him. “So I don’t take it for granted. So you know how I’m feeling.”  
  
When he pulled back, he could almost see Delta’s sudden flash of insight in his bright green eyes. “I love you.” He mouthed the words again silently, bringing up a hand to touch his lips; he didn’t say it often, and he seemed amazed and entranced at how it sounded coming out of his own mouth. “I love you,” he said again. “I love you.”  
  
York just held Delta’s face with his hand, his thumb smoothing over his eyebrow, his cheek, the scar going through his lip. “This is how many times you’ve saved my life now?”  
  
“Several.” He must have been completely wiped, because he didn’t elaborate with the exact number.  
  
York sighed heavily, acutely feeling the weight of Delta’s slight frame against his chest. “At least get some clothes on before you fall asleep.”  
  
“Your assumption is that I would be displeased to be nude in front of Agent Texas.”  
  
“Dee, you don’t have to make her uncomfortable on purpose,” York chided him. “She already knows about us, anyway.”  
  
That woke him up; his fingers clenched slightly and his nails raked across York’s oversensitive skin. “How does she know?”  
  
“She saw us leaving from the Freelancer complex – I kissed you on the cheek, remember? And it’s not that hard to infer.”  
  
“I disagree,” Delta said stubbornly. “There is nothing in my behavior that would indicate any possible romantic or sexual interest in you beyond what is appropriate for a businesslike relationship.”  
  
His insinuation was that York’s actions made it perfectly clear. “I try to scale it down around her. It just doesn’t work out. And it’s not just me. The way you look at me, it’s like…” There were no words for how ardent his gaze could be. “It’s obvious, okay?”  
  
“Ah. Involuntary pupil dilation.” York knew if he waited long enough, he’d get a translation. “It signals sexual attraction.”  
  
“I just – I don’t want you to antagonize Tex too much, okay? I can’t have you guys at each other’s throats all the time,” York insisted. “We have to stay in close quarters for the foreseeable future, and I don’t want to get caught in the crossfire.”  
  
“I was unaware at your discomfort due to my suspicions. I will not display them so overtly in the future,” Delta acquiesced.  
  
It was better than nothing, even if Delta was still holding onto his animosity for now. “Just don’t kill her. She hasn’t tried to kill us yet.” York stretched slightly; his muscles were tight and sore, and all his body wanted to do was collapse. “Where are my pants?”  
  
Delta leaned over and held them up; they dressed awkwardly, given the room in the cockpit. By now it was full daylight. “My estimation is that we have given Agent Texas enough time to erect a stable temporary shelter.”  
  
“Good. We both need to sleep.” If York looked anything like Delta did, they were both practically dead on their feet.  
  
Delta scrambled out of the Hornet first, holding a hand out for York; even after York was out of the vehicle, Delta still kept the contact, twining their fingers together as they stumbled back to Tex’s camp. He didn’t shy away once they were in eyesight of Tex, even though she crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow at their approach. “Got that taken care of,” she noted, looking pointedly at York’s shoulder.  
  
“Yeah, Dee was patching me up.” Among other things that Tex didn’t particularly need to know. “Sensors?”  
  
She’d set some up at the entrance to the rock overhang they’d be using as their shelter backdrop so they wouldn’t be ambushed while they slept; York could see the glint of morning sunlight off of the metal embedded in the ground. “I’m not stupid.” She rolled her eyes before retreating into the cool darkness in the shelter.  
  
She might not think she was, but she was no Delta, and he was already glancing around disdainfully at Tex’s handiwork. “Inadequate,” he sniffed.  
  
“Leave it,” York said in a warning tone. Then, gentler, “You need to rest first.” He dragged Delta underneath the tarp and towards the cots that Tex had set up. There were two, and Tex was already sleeping on one. “Really?” York sighed in frustration. “Rock paper scissors for who sets up the other one.” They were too small and unstable for the two of them to share one, however thoughtful Tex might have thought she was.  
  
“I have already beaten you.” When York turned to look at him, Delta’s expression was downright smug. “You always choose scissors.”  
  
“God damn it,” York grumbled. He was too tired for this. But as soon as he left Delta’s side, his partner collapsed onto the free cot; his breathing was deep and even after only a few seconds. He couldn’t help his smile – Delta was adorable when he was sleeping. He’d wish him sweet dreams, but in all the time York had known him, he’d only dreamed once. “Sleep well,” he settled for, and kissed him on the cheek.


	10. Chapter 10: The Waiting Game

> _ Day 1. 1828 hours. _

  
“Hnrg. I think I’m turning nocturnal,” York groaned as he woke.  
  
Delta, of course, was already awake. He’d washed – all the blood was gone from his hands – and he was manipulating his slate, as always. “Excellent. I assign you to tonight’s watch.”  
  
“Wait – come on, I didn’t mean it –” The rest of his protest was cut off by Tex’s snicker. When he looked over, though, she had her eye to a sniper scope, face set in a stoic impression as she focused on the Installation. “ _Fine_ ,” he acquiesced, reaching down for a bottle of water so he could splash it in his face.  
  
  


> _ Day 1. 1905 hours. _

  
“Is this seriously all we have to eat?” Tex had been searching through their food stores for the past five minutes; she’d determined it was time for dinner, and if she was that insistent on mothering them, York decided it was better if he stayed the hell out of her way. Especially since she had been throwing protein bars over her shoulders as she put her hands on everything.  
  
“Not good enough for you, sweet pea?” York knew it wasn’t a good idea to tease a tired, hungry, and volatile Freelancer, but it was too fun – like poking a hibernating bear with a stick.  
  
She didn’t seem to have caught his sarcastic tone. “How can you stand it?”  
  
York shrugged as he took a bite out of a foil pack. “Different flavor than I’m usched to.”  
  
“York!”  
  
“Sorry, Dee.”  
  
  


> _ Day 1. 1913 hours. _

  
“Okay, that’s it,” Tex fumed, throwing down a half-drained pack of protein sludge. “I’m making a run to the mainland. If you want anything, speak up.”  
  
York snapped his head up. “Whiskey.”  
  
“Still at Command. Never defected – and I didn’t think you needed a doctor for your shoulder.”  
  
“No, not Agent Wisconsin.  _Alcohol._  Anything, I’m not particular.” He’d need it if he had to keep putting up with her temper tantrums for the foreseeable future.  
  
To his surprise, she actually took him seriously, nodding in his direction before turning to Delta. “Dee?”  
  
“I am adequately supplied,” he said stiffly, hiding from her glare behind his slate.  
  
York knew he wasn’t exactly telling the truth. “He’ll need some backup power for that thing,” he stage-whispered to Tex.  
  
“Keys?” He flung them to her, and she stalked off, her attitude almost visible as a shimmer around her – or maybe that was just the heat.  
  
  


> _ Day 1. 2347 hours. _

  
“Think you can join me on watch?”  
  
“I have other tasks I must complete.”  
  
“Tasks including me?”  
  
“I am suspicious of your intentions.”  
  
“Okay, fine, maybe I wanted to take advantage of a time when Tex wouldn’t be breathing down our necks.”  
  
“Agent Texas will be returning momentarily –”  
  
“Which is why we have to be quick about this.”  
  
“I am not the one who is averse to Agent Texas possibly exercising her voyeuristic tendencies.”  
  
“Shut up and kiss me, Dee.”  
  
  


> _ Day 2. 1511 hours. _

  
“You only need one eye for a scope, right?” Tex asked York.  
  
“Well, yeah – why, we doing recon?”  
  
Tex rolled her eyes. “No, we’re just going to sit here and hope that everyone gets called down to Sherri’s office birthday party at the same time.”  
  
“There’s no one out right  _now_ ,” York pointed out. Not exactly true, but there were multiple entrances and only two guards to cover them.  
  
“Guard movements cannot be counted as reliable until we have monitored them over the course of several days,” Delta piped up.  
  
Wait, since when did Delta agree with Tex about anything? “You’re gonna be taking notes, I take it?” York asked him.  
  
In response, Delta showed him the screen on his slate. On it was an admirably detailed architectural blueprint of the Installation, with annotations springing off in every direction. “I am in the process of calculating the opportune moment for our infiltration, which I cannot do without additional data.”  
  
“What, you mean we’ll actually be going in with a  _plan_?” But his sarcasm was good-natured; there was always a plan, even if it was just a contingency plan.  
  
Delta ignored the vague complaint; he’d probably heard it so many times by now that he understood that York was joking when he said that. “I will request that you use these call signs during surveillance,” Delta said, handing him the slate so he had at least a fighting chance of memorizing the letter-number combinations.  
  
To his right, he could hear clicking and shuffling; when he turned, he could see Tex strapping all manner of weaponry to herself and checking the magazine of her rifle. “Where are you going?”  
  
“Recon. Don’t do anything stupid.”  
  
“Yes ma’am,” York grumbled as she left. “God, Dee, how do you expect me to remember all this?”  
  
“I am here to assist,” he reminded him softly. “Now. There is work to be done.”  
  
  


> _ Day 3. 0856 hours. _

  
“Oh, you chucklefucks – could you just  _not_  do that while I’m actually doing some serious work?” Tex covered her eyes with a hand. “Or just – don’t throw it in my face, damn it!”  
  
At least York stopped kissing Delta to acknowledge that she’d barged into the shelter to find him making out with his partner. When he saw the violent scowl across her face and the hand planted firmly on her hip, he gave a low whistle. “ _Some_ body hasn’t been laid in a while.”  
  
She flipped up her hand, peering at him from under it, and she raised an eyebrow. “Are you volunteering?”  
  
“ _Hell_  no.” Even if he wasn’t already committed to Delta, his response would have been the same.  
  
“Ugh, I knew it,” she grumbled, her hand sliding down her face to smooth out her features. It didn’t help alleviate her murderous expression much. “You’re gay, aren’t you?”  
  
“Uh, no? I was  _married_ ,” he reminded her. He didn’t realize he’d dug little nail marks in Delta’s hip with his left hand until his partner pried it off.  
  
She just scoffed. “Then it shouldn’t be a problem.”  
  
“Except it is.” He brought his hands up behind Delta’s back to tick off the reasons why. “For one,” he said, touching his index finger, “I don’t have a death wish. For another –” he emphasized his middle finger – “I am just not that into you. Tell the truth, you remind me a lot of an angry mama bear that… uh… just… caught her cubs trying to have sex?” The metaphor fell apart as he was saying it. “Something like that. Anyway. Even if I was…” He gave Delta a squeeze. “I sorta got some  _obligations_.”  
  
“Yeah, so like I said, you’re gay,” she summarized.  
  
“Oh, I wouldn’t say  _that_ ,” York drawled. “I’m just… Delta-sexual.” He kissed Delta’s cheek for emphasis, pulling him in close.  
  
It got the effect he wanted. “Ugh, you’re just – you’re obnoxious, both of you.” And she stomped out of the shelter the same way she came in.  
  
York let out a sigh of relief once she left. “Crisis averted.”  
  
“Shall we return to business?”  
  
“If by ‘business’ you mean ‘sex’, then yes. Mm, do that again.”  
  
  


> _ Day 3. 2131 hours. _

  
“Come on, Dee, it’s not gonna kill you.”  
  
“Deliberately poisoning my body does not process as a pleasant diversion.”  
  
“You’re not poisoning – well, I guess you are. Still. Not gonna kill you.”  
  
“With my altered body chemistry, I doubt this will have any positive effects.”  
  
“Just… think of it as an experiment.”  
  
“I suppose, as usual, you will refuse to acquiesce until I give in to your demands.”  
  
“You make me sound so  _mean_  sometimes.”  
  
“I do not categorize this as intentional cruelty, merely stubbornness.”  
  
“So you’ll get drunk with us?”  
  
“Only to assuage your pride.”  
  
“Is that a yes?”  
  
“It was intended as an affirmation.”  
  
“Well, you don’t have to sound so insulted.”  
  
  


> _ Day 3. 2147 hours. _

  
“Well?” York asked Delta over the sound of his coughing. The scotch wasn’t going down smoothly at all for him.  
  
Delta just glared at him. “I strongly dislike this. The flavor is distasteful at best and the alcohol seems not to have been absorbed into my bloodstream yet.”  
  
He was already mumbling, though, and his eyes were a little bleary, and so York smiled. “Tex, I think he needs another drink.”  
  
  


> _ Day 3. 2228 hours. _

  
“Fasssssssssscinating,” Delta slurred, his eyes crossing momentarily before he turned to the side and retched into the low-lying scrub. By the time York got to his side, he’d passed out. Poor kid.  
  
  


> _ Day 4. 0025 hours. _

  
“Feel bad for him,” York said, vaguely gesturing back towards the shelter where he’d laid Delta out on his cot.  
  
“Wonder if he’s gonna have a hangover.” Tex was in the middle of pouring herself her fifth – seventh – tenth? – tumbler of scotch. York had gotten a bit fuzzy with the numbers past his third or fourth, but they’d already thrown one empty bottle down in the direction of the beach; it had broken against a rock, and the glass was scattered across the sand, reflecting the scant light.  
  
York just shrugged, only wincing a little when the movement aggravated his shoulder. “He’s been through worse.”  
  
“So have we all.” She’d allowed a watch fire for tonight’s little celebration, and she poked at it a little morosely with a gnarled piece of skinny driftwood. “Hey. Y’know what we should do? A round of I Never.”  
  
York just looked at her over his glass. “Isn’t that a little… college?”  
  
She ignored his jibe. “I never got married.”  
  
York drank. “I never cheated on anyone.”  
  
Tex drained her glass, reached for the bottle to refill it. “I’ve never been to Disneyworld.”  
  
When he didn’t move, she raised an eyebrow at him. “Grew up in San Francisco. It’s Disney _land_  out there,” he corrected her. “I never killed a man. With my bare hands,” he said before Tex could interrupt and tell him to drink.  
  
She took a pull. “I never walked in on someone having sex.”  
  
With his infiltration skills, it would have been an insult to his intelligence if he hadn’t, but it was particularly barbed coming from Tex: he’d caught her under her fair share of Freelancers. “I’ve never taken video logs of people having sex,” he zinged her right back. “You didn’t actually have to drink, I was just kidding.”  
  
“I wasn’t,” she told him once she took her tumbler down from her lips. “I’ve never been in love.”  
  
York could have called bullshit on that, but he decided it would be a better idea to stay quiet, and so he choked down a little more scotch. “I never had a one-night stand.”  
  
“You never had a one-night stand?”  
  
“Never.”  
  
Tex didn’t just take a swallow, she downed her whole glass. “Damn, I’m running out of things I haven’t done.”  
  
“So’m I.” York leaned back on his elbows, grinning up at her. “Embarrassing things I haven’t done that you have, mostly. You could just volunteer, but that’s no fun.”  
  
“Or we could just talk.”  
  
“Yeah. We could talk.”  
  
A few moments went by while they continued to drink. “You’re not talking,” she said eventually.  
  
“Neither are you.”  
  
They both stared at the fire.  
  
  


> _ Day 4. 1109 hours. _

  
“Where are my tapes?”  
  
“Burned ‘em.”  
  
 _“Why?”_  
  
“Because I didn’t sign a release.”  
  
“How did you even –”  
  
“I’m an infiltration specialist, sweet tits, I steal for a living.”  
  
“I just can’t have any privacy around here, can I?”  
  
“Yeah, ‘cause it’s real private to realize you’ve been videotaped while having sex.”  
  
“Surprised you didn’t just keep ‘em for yourself.”  
  
“Oh, I watched ‘em. Just more fun to watch ‘em burn. ‘Sides, it pisses you off that you can’t just take ‘em back.”  
  
“Where are all the surveillance tapes?”  
  
“Everything that was labeled ‘surveillance’ was only surveillance of a brunet and a redhead acting out the Kama Sutra. Hot, but not exactly infiltration material. Burned those, too.”  
  
“Why would you do that?”  
  
“Knowing you, you’d just record over them again.”  
  
“Why didn’t you just keep them?”  
  
“You’d just steal them back.”  
  
“You have a point.”  
  
“I’m always right. Except for when Delta is. Between the two of us, we’re always right.”  
  
  


> _ Day 5. 0339 hours. _

  
“How did your thing go, by the way?” York asked Tex as he peered through the sniper scope to Installation 05.  
  
“What thing?”  
  
“You know, your escape-from-the-Project tell-the-Alpha-his-brother-died thing.” The only reason York felt comfortable enough to ask about this was because Delta was on guard duty. If his partner had heard any of this discussion about him helping Tex or about Tex having feelings or especially about the Alpha, he’d be getting the cold shoulder for weeks – for definitions of ‘cold shoulder’ that included untimely abstinence.  
  
When he looked back, he could see Tex slumped over on her cot, elbows on her knees. He’d expected her to get defensive, to crow about a victory, anything but her soft sigh. “He didn’t even recognize me.”  
  
“How is that even –” At Tex’s glare, the words lodged in his throat, and he turned back to the rifle, ashamed to have been caught staring.  
  
“I tried to get him to come with me.” York heard the familiar clink of Tex’s fingers twiddling with her dogtags. “Omega thought he might come easier if we took away any obstacles, and you know what we were trained to do. We took out the Blue base, but Church just… stood there. Stared at me like he had no idea who I was, like I was just some murder machine who’d slaughtered all his friends instead of his angel trying to get him out of danger.” She swallowed heavily. “I failed, York. I couldn’t tell him. So Omega and I just… left. Left him there with all that blood on the snow.”  
  
York didn’t know what to say to that, so it was a good thing that he had troop movements to call out. “Guard change at entrance tango-kilo-four-two-one. What’s the time?”  
  
“Zero-three-four-two.” She made tapping notes on her slate. “How many?”  
  
“Two men enter, one man leaves.” To Tex’s derisive snort, he replied, “What? That’s what just happened, I swear, two guys came out and the one that was there went back inside.”  
  
“Patrols are heavier at night, then. We’ll have to hit during the day.”  
  
York set aside his scope, turning back to face Tex; she wasn’t looking at him, but the tension in her shoulders let him know that she felt his eyes on her. “Why are we doing this?” he asked her softly.  
  
“Omega’s trying to be someone he’s not.” She rubbed her dogtags together, not even noticing the motor tic. “He wants to be the Alpha, to kill him and take his power and take over the world. And I can’t let that happen. I can’t let him kill Church.”  
  
York shivered. “I got a reason to hate him, too,” he pointed out, raising his left eyebrow to call attention to his mangled face.  
  
“Everybody does,” Tex sighed. Her eyes flicked to the opening of the tarp making up their shelter. “Even Delta.”  
  
A little payback would be nice, indeed, York thought. It was the only excuse they had for cohering together, the only reason why Tex and Delta were getting along – they just had to keep a good grip on it.  
  
  


> _ Day 5. 1212 hours. _

  
“Any movement?”  
  
“Nah.”  
  
“Guard should have changed by now.”  
  
“I know.”  
  
  


> _ Day 5. 2141 hours. _

  
“Any movement?”  
  
“I woulda told you.”  
  
“All right, all right.”  
  
  


> _ Day 6. 0500 hours. _

  
“Any movement?”  
  
“Yes, they’re having a dance party right outside tango-kilo-four-two-one.”  
  
“I’m no stranger to sarcasm, York.”  
  
“Then  _stop asking_.”  
  
  


> _ Day 6. 1437 hours. _

  
“Any movement?”  
  
“Tex. I will  _tell_  you if there is any movement. Really, I promise. You don’t have to keep asking.”  
  
  


> _ Day 7. 0135 hours. _

  
“You’re sure there hasn’t been any movement?”  
  
“Just ask Dee, he’s been charting everything.”  
  
“There has been nothing significant to report for over thirty-six hours.”  
  
“Keep looking.”  
  
“Does it look like I’m doing anything else?”  
  
“What was that, York?”  
  
“Nothing, princess, nothing.”  
  
  


> _ Day 7. 1422 hours. _

  
“Still nothing?”  
  
“Still nothing. Starting to creep me out. How long’s it been, Dee?”  
  
“Roughly fifty hours have passed since the anticipated time of the guard rotation.”  
  
“I don’t like it. Keep –”  
  
“– looking, I know, I know, I can’t see stuff that isn’t there.”  
  
  


> _ Day 7. 2353 hours. _

  
“It’s been how long now?”  
  
“Almost three days since I last told you about a guard change.”  
  
“I don’t like this.”  
  
“Me neither.”  
  
  


> _ Day 8. 0527 hours. _

  
“Okay, I’m officially worried,” Tex announced. “There hasn’t been any movement for days. It looks like they’ve bunkered down or left.”  
  
“Or they’re waiting for reinforcements,” York mentioned. “Dee, what’s your take?”  
  
“If Omega is inside the building, we must enter to locate him. If he has already left, that building contains the only clues to his location. In either scenario, we must –”  
  
“We gotta get in there,” York explained over Delta’s long-winded analysis.  
  
Tex nodded. “Delta, can you give us a best time projection?”  
  
Delta turned back to his slate, tapping it a few times and then frowning at it. “My data points are insufficient due to the recent lack of activity, but the patrols seemed to be least populated in the late morning hours.”  
  
“Well, then.” Tex stood, cracked her elbows behind her back. “Getting the ammo from the Hornet. We’re gonna need it.”  
  
York watched her go; her nonchalant swagger had morphed into a shoulders-hunched stomp, clearly indicating her attitude. “I am concerned,” Delta voiced for him, but when he continued, their thoughts had clearly diverged. “I have been monitoring Agent Texas. Her vitals are well above normal.”  
  
“I’m sure she’s just tense, Dee. Hell, I’m tense, and I’m not about to cap my old missions partner.” He reached out to lay a hand on Delta’s knee. “Think about it, with how close we are. Now think about how _she_  must feel.”  
  
“The anomaly is worth noting,” Delta said stubbornly. “Once we encounter the target, her emotions may make her actions erratic.”  
  
York raised his right eyebrow. “You’re not seriously suggesting that we back out of this, are you?”  
  
“Not in the least.” But he wouldn’t meet York’s gaze, hiding his eyes as he looked over his slate.  
  
York reached down to gently take it out of his grasp; once his hands were empty, he gripped at them with a single hand, using the other to tip Delta’s face up so he could look him square in the face. “I want to know something,” he said softly.  
  
“State your query.” His voice was tremulous, his hands in York’s cold despite the January heat.  
  
“You know why I’m doing this. You know why Tex is doing this.” He smoothed over the side of Delta’s face. “Why are  _you_  doing this?”  
  
“Omega and I have a personal history that spans back to our first days at the Academy.” His green, green eyes still wouldn’t meet York’s.  
  
Not good if he wouldn’t look at him while he said that. “What did he do to you?”  
  
“He made three distinct attempts on my life. The last nearly succeeded.” Finally, Delta looked to him; there was a ferocity buried deep within the intense green of his eyes that profoundly disturbed York. “You are not the only one he has attacked.”  
  
York’s stomach clenched painfully. Delta hadn’t had any scars before he’d been paired with him. His eyes… he’d always thought they were too beautiful to be real…  
  
He hadn’t noticed Tex had returned until he heard the thump of a full duffel hitting the ground inside their shelter. As it was, he flinched at the sound, gripping onto Delta’s hands so tightly that his partner made a little noise of discomfort that didn’t quite make it out of his throat. “Get your shit together,” Tex growled at the two of them, her black mood written on her face. “We leave at 0800.”  
  
  


> _ Day 8. 0852 hours. _

  
“Did you know there would be that many of them?” York asked Tex breathlessly as he leaned against the Installation’s inner wall. He threw away his two now-empty SMGs, ignoring the glare of the offended utilitarian that he could feel Delta pointing at him, and instead groped for his trusty battle rifle.  
  
“Told you there’d be reinforcements,” Tex taunted him, though she, too, was panting. “No vis.” Her SMGs joined his on the stone floor of the antechamber they’d taken, littered amongst the fallen bodies and weapons of the forces that had tried to oppose them.   
  
He tried to catch his breath, settled for slumping over with his hands on his knees. “No vis.”  
  
A quick pat-down of the various guns she’d harnessed to her legs and sides, a flick of her wrist to check the time, and then she collapsed on the wall same as he had. “Shit. Wasted all that ammo on  _these_ cockbites.”  
  
York rolled his shoulder; it felt stiff, and he needed to limber up if they still had ass-kicking to do. “Dee, we need an estimate of who we got left.”  
  
He hardly needed to blink and Delta’s slate was back in his hands. “The remaining squadron seems to be awaiting our arrival on the roof of the Installation.”  
  
“The roof?” He looked to Tex for an answer.  
  
She didn’t seem particularly pleased, if the inventive string of curses out of her mouth was any indication. “They know we know. Damn it!” She knocked her fist back against the wall so hard that the mortar crumbled around the impact point of her hand.  
  
“Not good,” York agreed. Then, “Wait, what do we know that they know we know?”  
  
“How to get to them.” Tex cocked her head forward a little, indicating the more shaded room a little further inside the Installation proper. “There it is. Bust the lock, and that teleporter will take us up top.”  
  
“Let’s get this straight, cupcake.” York pushed himself away from the wall, trying to slow his hammering heartbeat, but his body seemed to have turned fight-or-flight up to eleven: his hands were shaking so badly that his rifle was rattling in his grip. “I don’t  _bust_  locks. I  _pick_  them.” He might have cracked them once, but Delta had broken him of that habit so long ago that it wasn’t worth it to go back.  
  
“Whatever,” Tex grumbled. “Just get me to the teleporter.”  
  
The little darkened room held nothing but a lock and a green glow, but it was still enough to make York groan. “You said an  _encrypted_  lock.”  
  
“Well, yeah, ‘cause that’s what it is.”  
  
“Nope. This is a  _holographic_  lock.”  
  
When he looked back, Tex was rolling her eyes at him. “Is there even a difference?”  
  
“You mean besides the fact that they have different names?” He couldn’t blame her for not knowing, though. He’d only come across a holographic lock once before, when he’d been breaking into the counselor’s office at Project Freelancer. That had been a pretty high-security room, what with all its sensitive secrets that needed to be kept at clearance levels York didn’t even have the privilege of knowing about. To see one here was unnerving, to say the least.  
  
“Shut up,” Tex snapped back. “Can you do it or not?”  
  
“Course I can.” He was an infiltration specialist – it should have gone without saying. “It’s just much harder. I just wanted you to realize how kick-ass I am.”  
  
“I’m convinced. Get to work.”  
  
York reached out his right hand to the lock, shaking his head. “Sheesh. Dee, get over here.” They’d cracked the last one together, and he planned to share this one with him, too.  
  
Just like the last time, Delta formed his body behind him, but only his left hand came out to manipulate the screen; the other arm snaked around his waist, holding him close. “Slowly,” he reminded York.  
  
Their hands moved in tandem, each doing the work they were meant to do, and eventually, their fingers touched as Delta moved the orange block inside the blue-purple circle that York was keeping stable. “Got it,” he called as soon as he could feel everything fall into place.  
  
“Okay.” Tex pushed away from the wall, heading for the now-activated teleporter. “I’ll take the lead. Give me fifteen seconds, then follow. Sync?”  
  
“Sync,” York and Delta said in unison.  
  
And then she was gone, the green glow taking her with a distorted warping sound. York tried to keep a slow count in his head, even though he knew it was redundant since Delta was usually their timer. He got his battle rifle back into position as Delta brought out his pistol, but at the last moment, he grasped the back of Delta’s head and pulled him in for a bruising kiss. “I need you to stay tight, Dee,” he murmured, touching their foreheads together and tousling Delta’s soft, curly hair. “Watch my bad side.”  
  
“Of course.” It was redundant – Delta practically was his left side by now. “Execute in five, four –”  
  
“I love you,” York murmured under the sound of Delta’s countdown. He disengaged, but kept just a tiny bit of contact with him, a nudge at his elbow to make sure that yes, he really was there, he really was going to watch out for him.  
  
“– one. Execute.” Delta nudged him back for the briefest moment until he detached from York’s side and lurched forward, and before York could think better of it, he followed.


	11. Chapter 11: Lock and Load

York hated teleporters.  
  
It wasn’t just the taste and smell of singed hair that they left in his nasal cavity, and it wasn’t just the endless itch he felt under his skin once he came out the other side. It wasn’t even the way his brain felt like it got screwed in backwards during the journey, his right eye the busted one and his sight flipped and distorted like a funhouse mirror.  
  
It was the simple fact that he didn’t know how they worked.  
  
No one had ever bothered to explain it to him. Not like he’d understand any of it anyway – he was a soldier, damn it, not a scientist. Still, he was the one who ultimately had to use the thing. He’d seen one too many glitches during basic, what with people coming out wrong or vomiting blood or even going missing entirely. He deserved at least a gloss-over of the mechanism.  
  
He knew enough to know that there were only two real options: flash-cloning and reassembly. The first one was creepy enough, what with the necessity of murdering one of your selves whenever you tried a shortcut from Point A to Point Z. If possible, reassembly was even worse, because there was a brief period of time where you simply  _wouldn’t exist_  and would have to take it on faith that you might exist again.  
  
So when York stumbled out of the glowing green portal on the roof of the Installation, he was already disoriented and unnerved. Dealing with the side effects of sudden matter transference was bad enough _without_  his predisposition to navel-gazing. And on top of all that, he had to get his head on straight. He had a job to do.  
  
Breathe – in, out, in. Shake out the numbness in his arms, the pins and needles feeling in his fingers. Blink, blink again, crick his neck (pop pop pop, was he really getting that old?), and then he brought the scope of his battle rifle to his right eye. So many of them, all wearing white, with red or blue stripes down their shoulders. Sim soldiers? Here? Why?  
  
He wasn’t given a chance to ruminate on it. When he ducked, the bullets that had been meant for his head embedded themselves in the stone wall behind him. York shot back, squeezing his trigger once (ratatat), twice (ratatat), and the Blue dropped to his knees before planting face-first. He wasn’t getting back up, that much was certain. Another round of burst fire, and York got another Blue to trip over the first. It was nice to be organized enough to make a pile of his kills, even if it was accidental; Delta would really enjoy this.  
  
Where the hell was he, anyway? For that matter, where was Tex? He’d been so focused on himself since he’d come out of the teleporter that he hadn’t had a chance to scan. The sound was easy enough to follow, though. Off to his left, Delta was shooting at anything that moved too fast, pistol kicking in his hands with every shot, and the arm left bare from his missing sleeve was already smeared with gore and grime. Tex, of course, was holding her own in the thick of things; there was too much movement for York’s eyes to follow, and besides, he had his own problems at the moment. “Tex, Dee, sitrep!” he yelled to them, batting away a Red with the butt of his rifle in the process.  
  
“Five of them at three-six and three-zero!” Tex reported, pointing with the muzzle of her rifle before she got caught up in her melee again.  
  
Delta didn’t yell back right away; when York finally picked him out of the fray, he could see his partner using a low wall as cover, leaning against it when he wasn’t shooting and only wheeling around to lock on when he was absolutely certain of himself. Not good – York had never seen him in such a tight spot. Two running steps forward and then he dropped low, sliding in like he was going for home. “How many?” he asked once he was at Delta’s side.  
  
“Three alpha mark, two bravo, several charlie.”  
  
Tough sons of bitches, then – if Delta had five sicced on him and Tex had to deal with ten, that still left too many unaccounted for, even factoring in the three York had already dropped. “That’s not a squad, that’s a goddamned platoon,” York said breathlessly. “Motion tracker?”  
  
Delta pressed it into his hand. When York looked down, the thing was lit up like a Christmas tree. “I counted thirty enemy combatants on first inspection. Five have been eliminated.”  
  
“Any sign of Omega?” Delta shook his head. “Wyoming?” He shook his head again. “Any reason why these are sim soldiers?”  
  
“It is likely these could be the only troops that could be supplied on such short notice to defend this facility.” He touched the motion tracker in York’s hands briefly to trace the red dots on its screen, then popped over the wall for just long enough to get off a few shots. At least one of the goons on the other side let out a death gurgle, exaggerating their demise with a long ‘hurk, bleagh’ just in case no one was paying attention. “They appear to have no commanding officer as such,” Delta noted over the burble, “which indicates that Agent Wyoming or Omega may still be present.”  
  
“Such a relief.” He couldn’t pick out either of them, though: none of the soldiers had flaming orange hair, and Wyoming’s penchant for white clothing didn’t make him stand out amongst the sea of sims. “I don’t think Omega’s here.” He’d be in the thick of the action if he were.  
  
“Cowardice is unlike him,” Delta agreed. A few clicks while he mechanically reloaded his pistol, and then he was shooting over the wall again.  
  
They’d be stuck here all day if he was determined to just shoot them out. York pulled a grenade from his bag, pulled the pin with his teeth, and lobbed it in the general direction of Delta’s targets. When Delta scowled at him, he just shrugged and smiled. “It seemed neater.”  
  
The general explosion wasn’t; there was a disgusting splatter that followed the flash-bang, and when York looked over to survey his handiwork, there was a liberal amount of gore sprayed everywhere – against the purple obstacles, across the stone floor, along the far wall. “Neater?” Delta asked him, voice somewhere between sarcasm and genuine confusion.  
  
“Got ‘em outta your way, didn’t I?” The fight wasn’t over yet, though; they had forces sidling around from the other side now, firing blindly until they had York and Delta in their sights. It was easy enough to gun them down, but eventually, they cottoned on and retreated back. Not ordinary sims, then – tough  _and_  smart.  
  
“Ten of thirty targets eliminated,” Delta reported, clipping the motion tracker back to his belt loop. “Eleven. Twelve.” Tex’s kills: he could hear the shots echoing from where she was.  
  
She came from behind and crouched at a wall only a short distance away from them; York could tell she wanted to make her way over, but she would have been too exposed. “Dead one at three,” she said, panting as she holstered her battle rifle and drew out the shotgun from her back. Bringing out the big guns – time to get down to business. “Cover my thirteen.”  
  
“Copy.” If she was going in close, he’d have to ping down anything that was out of her range. “Dee, what’s your rec?”  
  
“Small explosives and pistol sniping.”  
  
“Stop thinking, go low!” Tex called out to them. Not two seconds later, she stood from her cover, shotgun at the ready, and blew a Blue’s face off. “Split off, you go bravo!”  
  
Go low. Right. Like he’d take an order like that when she’d just refused to do the same. Still, one of those purple things was not five yards from where he was, and it was easy enough to crouch-run over and press his back to it. He was looking straight at Delta when he took another grenade out of his bag. Only one left after this – couldn’t count on doing this forever. It would be impossible to tell Delta this over the sound of the firefight, so he flashed him a one with his left hand. Delta flashed him an okay sign, then nodded. York hooked the pin of the grenade with his tooth, giving Delta a silent countdown. Three, two, one, and then he lobbed the explosive as Delta stood and started sniping.  
  
It was perfect timing. York could see the forces scattering as the pineapple landed in their midst, and their panicking made them vulnerable to Delta’s precision marksmanship. By the time the fireball actually came, Delta had managed to eliminate three of them, and the grenade had taken three more, not counting shrapnel injuries.  
  
Delta had used the confusion from the detonation to come closer to York; both of them were in close quarters now, squeezing their bodies together so they could both fit behind the cover York had picked. Even with the battle raging around them, York took some small bit of comfort in the fact that Delta had chosen to wedge himself in against York’s left side. Watching out for him, like always, and York showed him an appreciative smile when Delta looked up to him.  
  
He still refused to talk over the noise; once he knew York was watching, he started signaling again. He made an O with his fingers, then slapped the heel of his hand against the inside of his wrist: ten enemies remaining. Not an optimal situation, but they could still fight their way out. But Delta’s news went from bad to worse when he pressed his fist to his forehead thumb-first, then showed three fingers against the black fabric covering his right upper arm. He’d seen Wyoming in the fray – and right behind them, too, if the way he pulled back his hand from his arm to indicate ‘six’ was any indication.  
  
“What are we waiting for?” York yelled to him over the din of Tex’s shootout.  
  
“Reload and go,” Delta told him, voice still low and cool as always. “Ninety-two percent efficiency, thirty-three of thirty-six rounds fired.”  
  
York grabbed at Delta’s hand, wheeled the two of them around so they’d be ready to strafe-attack the troops on the other side of them. “Mark?”  
  
Delta squeezed his hand. “Mark.”  
  
The minute he let go, they kicked off to the left simultaneously. Delta’s pistol was up and out, kicking as he shot and shot and shot (nine, eight, seven); York was holding out for a glimpse of Wyoming before he wasted any more ammo, but he didn’t seem to have a choice. Ratatat, ratatat, and another one dropped. Six. But where the hell was Wyoming?  
  
In the back, of course. Coward. Wyoming’s lip was curled into a smirk, which only emphasized his goatee. He’d aged since York had last seen him – they all had – and now his auburn hair was streaked with gray and white. It didn’t serve to make him look any less menacing, especially as he brought up his own rifle to his eye and started shooting at the two of them.  
  
Delta was closer to cover. York pushed him away, hoping he’d get the message and get down before it was too late. Wyoming was in his sights, he had him, if only he’d stop weaving like that, and York squeezed the trigger once, twice, again.  
  
And then he was hit.  
  
The impact was right below his left collarbone, just before the armor on his flak vest started. And it  _hurt_. There was the raw agony of the exposed flesh, then the deeper ache of the bullet as it lodged deep into muscle and trapped itself near bone. When York looked down, his vest was already wet with blood. He touched his fingers to the torn hole in it dumbly; when he pulled them away, his fingertips were a deep, glossy red.  
  
When he didn’t fall, Wyoming only took the opportunity to shoot him again, this time a little lower and a little closer to his heart. The force of being shot had him landing flat on his ass – thankfully behind the cover Delta had managed to clear for the both of them. Delta was there to catch him, or at least soften the blow, because he could feel the pressure of his hands against his upper back. “York,” he could hear him saying over the heavy pulse running in his ears, “York, remain still.”  
  
Like hell – he was fighting to push himself up to a sitting position against the wall, staining it with gore in the process. “It’s that damn left side,” he gritted out. His blood pressure spike had left his left eye effectively blind, he couldn’t move his left arm, and his chest was a gigantic mass of pure pain. Delta dropped his pistol and started frantically searching through York’s bag. “That’s not gonna help,” he managed to say.  
  
Delta ignored him; for the second time in two weeks, a healing unit got attached to his neck. The morphine and adrenalin flooded his system immediately, but the dull throbbing remained. York only hoped that Delta wasn’t getting any grand ideas about pulling the bullets out – that would have done more damage than it was worth. Delta did check his pulse, though, and he made a few adjustments to the healing unit. “Are you able to breathe?”  
  
Not when he was looking straight into Delta’s eyes like that, he wanted to joke, but this wasn’t the time for that. “Yes,” he wheezed. Taking in air was painful, even with the coat of medication glossing it over. It helped when Delta tore open his flak vest and used the punctures in his turtleneck to rip the fabric apart, exposing his injuries and relieving at least a little of the pressure. “If you wanted to get me naked,” York joked, interrupted in the middle by an absolutely foul coughing fit that felt like he was drowning, “you could have just asked.”  
  
“You are going into shock,” Delta muttered, tearing the other sleeve from his shirt. This time, he wrapped it under his left arm and tied it off on the right side of his neck. “I instructed you to remain still.”  
  
York was still trying to get his legs beneath him. “I c’n still fight,” he slurred, propping himself up against the low wall with his elbow. “’M fine, Dee.” Delta’s makeshift bandage hid the worst of his wounds, and if he concentrated on the painkillers instead of the spots behind his eyes or the dizziness in his head or the tightness in his chest, he could pretend he was okay.  
  
“You will lose consciousness if you continue to struggle,” Delta admonished him. He pushed York down from where he’d been trying to stand, wedging him into a corner. “Refrain from aggravating your injuries any further.”  
  
“Wait, where you goin’?” York teased him. He tried to smile, but his face twisted into a grimace, teeth bared and clenched tight. “Aren’t you gonna babysit me?”  
  
Delta was rooting around in his sack again; when he pulled his hand out, York could see not one, but two folded butterfly knives in his fist. The one marked with a triangle was new, but the one marked with the sideways M was the one Delta had used in his homicidal trance when they’d stormed the island. The same cold intensity was in him now, and he kept his eyes on York even as he switched one knife to the other hand and clutched the handles so hard his knuckles stood out. “Who is responsible for this?”  
  
“Wy – Wyo –” Speaking was too much for him; he had to turn his head and spit out the blood that had pooled in his mouth.  
  
“Target verified.” Delta stood, his form a stark silhouette against the midday sun. The light caught his hair in a golden corona, but his outline was filled with a darkness York couldn’t begin to comprehend. Though his eyes were hidden in shadow, York could swear that they’d flashed red for the briefest moment before he pivoted on his heel to face the enemy forces. “Commencing hostilities.”  
  
York watched, feeling helpless, as Delta walked away from him, each slow step towards his antagonists graceful in its precision. One of his blades fell out in traditional style by his left hip, but the other he flicked out over his thumb and twirled by his right ear, as if getting a feel for its weight and balance before he had to test the physics. He didn’t build up into a run, didn’t charge his foe, just kept walking, step by step by deliberate step. Even when the mooks opened fire on him, he didn’t swerve from his trajectory, as if the bullets would go right through him. As if he was a hologram. As if he wasn’t  _human_.  
  
The interesting thing about pain, York noticed, was that it made seconds seem like hours and minutes seem like days. The time dilation made it seem like Delta’s approach had taken forever, but even with the distortion, the movement of Delta’s first attack was blurred. A Blue broke cover to engage him hand-to-hand, but Delta filleted him, laying him open from hip to armpit and leaving behind a graceful arc of blood as his right hand slashed him open. The soldier didn’t seem to realize he’d been gutted, and so he fought back, clumsily swiping at him with the butt of his rifle. It left him open for another assault: this time, the knife in Delta’s left hand aimed straight for his sternum. Even from so far away, York could hear the gruesome sound of blade punching through bone.  
  
This didn’t seem to be enough to satisfy Delta, though – with a handle on the goon’s chest, he used his free hand to slash and slash and slash, blood spraying onto his bare arms as he mutilated the guy’s chest, throat, face. When Delta finally pulled back his left fist, the Blue crumpled into a pool if his own blood. His features were mangled beyond all recognition. Five.  
  
Two more Reds came to take the Blue’s place, a man and a woman, hoping to catch Delta at a disadvantage by approaching from either side and double-teaming him. York was proud when Delta didn’t fall for it – he was too smart for that. But where he had only used his hands before, now he brought his feet into play. He dropped low and kicked out the guy’s legs from beneath him, and when the other one tried to shoot at him while he was down, Delta just dug a knife into her hip and used the momentum from stabbing her to pull himself up. He knocked the rifle out of her hands at the same time as he kicked away the guy’s gun; York couldn’t tell if it was intended or a happy accident, but it hit the guy in the face, breaking his nose with a distinctive crunch and gush of blood.  
  
The woman jumped away when Delta made a wild swipe at eye level, but it only left her side exposed. Delta took advantage of it and moved the knife from her hip to the side of her stomach. When she screamed in pain, Delta took it as an indication to slit her throat, and the sound ended in a thick gurgle before Delta kicked her body away. Four.  
  
The Red soldier that Delta had kicked down was trying to crawl towards his rifle, but just when York thought he was going to reach it, Delta knelt and stabbed a blade through the back of the guy’s hand, trapping him in place. He was face-down now, legs kicking beneath him in a vain attempt to get up, but Delta just wedged the knife in harder between his metatarsals, holding on so tightly that York could see the outline of each wiry muscle in his arms. York didn’t know where Delta had found the strength to do that, but just as quickly, he decided that he didn’t  _want_  to know.  
  
To keep the guy from crawling away, Delta methodically hamstrung him, slicing through the back of one thigh and then the other. When the guy cried out in agony, York realized that throughout this combat, Delta hadn’t let out a single sound. No repeated mantra. No battle cry. No primal yell. Not even his customary commentary or witty banter. And just as he’d been silent, his expression was also stoic. His eyes were flinty, his mouth set in a hard line, and the tension in his forehead indicated nothing more than a single-minded focus – absolute concentration. Immersion. His countenance never changed even as he punched a series of holes in the Red’s upper back, hand moving so fast it was a blur to York’s eyes. Three.  
  
The other two Blues were circling Tex. Delta didn’t seem to register that he was about to come between a lioness and her prey; if York had any breath left to hold, he’d have sucked it in. Tex looked too surprised to be angry, though: her jaw was slack, her eyebrows up, and she was even distracted from her fight as Delta took one of the Blues aside. Now Delta had an audience of two, and his performance, as always, was flawless.  
  
Once he’d pulled on the Blue’s shoulder to get her attention away from Tex, he started in on her, thrusting his arm forward once, twice, again. She dodged as best she could, but Delta had two knives, not just one, and so it was only a matter of time before he had her backed against a wall. When she realized she was cornered, she hunched in on herself in a fighter’s stance, hands covering her face, forearms protecting her chest, elbows shielding her stomach. It didn’t stop Delta’s relentless onslaught. With a swift upward-angled stab to her stomach, he had her pinned like a butterfly to a bulletin board; her innards fell from her gut when he let her slump to the ground. Two.  
  
Tex gave York a look that bordered on forlorn when Delta set in on her last kill. Her facial expression asked him one simple question:  _did you know he was capable of this?_  York looked on just as helplessly. He’d never seen Delta this agitated. Delta had gone into berserker mode after someone had thrown a grenade at the two of them – had even threatened to kill Tex for holding York at gunpoint – but he’d never given any indication that this  _slaughter_  was what he’d been trained to do.  
  
Then again, York had never been this injured before. It was an entirely different sort of pain for him to have to sit there, useless, as Delta unleashed whatever hidden stores of carnage he had kept in reserve for dealing out this kind of judgment. They should be doing this together. Delta shouldn’t have to collect his retribution all alone like that. But however much York wanted to move, his limbs just wouldn’t let him. They felt heavy, clumsy, detached from his body. Dead weight. And so all he could do was watch as Delta engaged the last sim soldier and encroached in on Tex’s victim.  
  
This one, at least, seemed to have some sense. He tried shooting at Delta, but when the bullets didn’t seem to faze him, he decided to play the game by Delta’s rules. Even as Delta was still approaching him with that slow walk, the Blue drew a standard-issue knife and made a kamikaze run on him, screaming as he charged. The blade was gigantic, easily as long as his forearm, and so he had a longer reach than Delta, whose blades were only as long as the span of his knuckles. What Delta lacked in size, though, he made up in numbers – and intelligence.  
  
Delta neatly sidestepped to avoid the Blue’s mad dash; if York hadn’t been in such torment, he would have laughed. The Blue, though, seemed to take it in stride – he set a foot down to switch his momentum, and without turning his body around, he used both hands to make a strong backwards thrust with his knife. Delta again moved out of the way, and his stance shifted when the Blue turned around to face him.  
  
They circled one another, the Blue looking jumpy, Delta’s face a mask of deliberation. The Blue twirled his knife, probably in an attempt to intimidate Delta with his greater physical brawn and longer blade, but York saw in Delta’s eyes a flicker of revelation. He’d found one of the sim soldier’s weak points, and he was willing to stay on the defensive until the Blue left himself exposed.  
  
Delta wasn’t distracted when Tex started firing at a wall in an effort to flush Wyoming out. The Blue was. Delta lunged forward, the Blue knocked his arm aside with a blow to the wrist, and Delta had to duck to avoid being decapitated. He uses the momentum shift to throw his shoulder into the Blue’s sternum, knocking the wind out of him and laying him out flat on his ass. Once the Blue was supine, he immediately shielded his face with his hands, leaving his knife protruding out as if it could protect him like that.  
  
York wanted to call out to Delta, wanted to draw attention to the way the Blue was focusing all his attention on the knife itself, not on the combat surrounding it. For all the Blue wanted to look like a badass, he didn’t know the first thing about fighting with a blade. Somehow, whether it was through sympathy or through superior intellect, Delta saw it too: there was a steely flash of recognition in his eyes before he set in for the kill. The Blue telegraphed his attack – it wasn’t like his arm had any place to go but up – and once he’d left himself vulnerable, Delta reached in and neatly slashed the tendons in his wrist. The knife dropped out of his hands, and his shriek made even York wince. Delta made quick work of him, driving one knife into his chest to collapse a lung while the other one made its way closer to the Blue’s heart. Whatever he did, it was clear that the Blue wasn’t getting up again.  
  
This only left one target left: Wyoming. He and Tex were still engaged in a shootout, each of them ducking behind cover when the other would deign to fire in their direction. Delta didn’t seem to care. He calmly stood from where he’d humiliated the last sim soldier, walked over to Wyoming in the same eerily serene manner, and pulled him out of cover. Wyoming tried to fight back, but it wasn’t long before Delta had stripped him of his weapon and had him backed up against a wall with a knife to his throat. Despite his smaller size, Delta seemed to dwarf Wyoming in intensity, and York could see that the older man was actually cowering away from him.  
  
He looked completely ready to slit his throat, was about to draw his hand across and have done with it already, until Tex called out to him. “Delta!” It was the first word anyone had spoken since Delta had left York’s side, and it froze the kid in his tracks. “Stand down.” He didn’t back away, just kept the knife against Wyoming’s throat. “Instruction: Stand. Down,” she repeated, her voice icy. “I need him alive.”  
  
Delta didn’t look like he was going to comply at first; then, he took his blade away from Wyoming’s adam’s apple. Once he stepped aside, Tex quickly swooped in and gave Wyoming a whack on the head that had him dropping like a stone. “If your primary objective was to render him unconscious, there are other methods at my disposal which do not risk the side effect of a potentially fatal cranial injury,” Delta snipped.  
  
Tex skipped over the criticism and got right to her point. “Where’s York?”  
  
York wanted to call out, say something – I’m over here, look this way. All that came out, though, was a terrible choking noise and coughing fit. Delta’s eyes darted to him, and then he was flicking his knives away faster than York’s vision could follow and sprinting towards him. Before he could blink, Delta was kneeling in front of him and his long, cool fingers were smoothing his hair away from his forehead. When he brought back his hand, York could see how coated in blood it really was. “I have eliminated all enemy combatants,” he informed York, though his voice was a little more hushed than it usually was. “There is no more danger here.”  
  
“Dee.” Tex had made her way over, and she was hovering above the two of them. “Info.”  
  
York was about to tell her himself, but it was hard to catch a breath. Everything was going all swimmy in front of him, his vision cutting out into green splotches. Or was that just Delta’s eyes? “York has sustained two wounds to his upper-left chest,” Delta said for him.  
  
Tex knelt down on one knee. When she saw the bloodstained sleeve keeping York’s injuries out of view, she actually blanched. “What’s your rec?” she asked Delta.  
  
“Evacuation,” Delta said without pause. “Statim.”  
  
No. No. It couldn’t be that bad. It couldn’t. Evac meant a rescue squad, meant flying back to headquarters, meant hours of zero-g surgery while they tried to stabilize you and hoped you’d live. There was no rescue squad here. They couldn’t go back to headquarters. And he’d rather die than face one of those rooms again. “Jus’ gimme a minute,” he insisted, but the effort of trying to move at all only made him slide further down the wall, shoulder leading the way.  
  
Delta caught him, cradling his head against his chest, and over his own pounding, sluggish heartbeat, he could feel Delta’s against his ear. “I have already administered emergency treatment. The healing unit contains an analgesic.”  
  
This – this couldn’t be happening. He could feel the familiar pull in his mind, could see the threatening darkness in the periphery of his field of vision. Breathing was hard, he was losing blood, and the agony… no wonder he was about to faint. He had to say something, though. Just in case. Not that he was going to kick it. He just needed to get a message across. “Wait, Tex, don’t – don’t let him…” Don’t let Delta get taken by Recovery agents, he wanted to plead. Don’t let those bastards get him while I’m out.  
  
He just had to hope his appeal got through. Halfway through his sentence, sweet unconsciousness dragged him under and took him to a place where there was no pain.


	12. Chapter 12: The Key

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have never cried harder than when writing this chapter

“York is now unconscious.”  
  
The statement would have been factual regardless of whether Delta spoke it aloud or kept it to himself. The difference was in hearing it. York’s body was heavier on his chest now; it would be uncomfortable to remain supporting him in this manner. Delta tucked his ankles beneath him and lay York down across his lap with his shoulders resting on Delta’s knees, ensuring that his wounds remained elevated all the while.  
  
He was in the process of checking York’s vital signs when Tex spoke. “How bad is it, Dee?”  
  
No one called him by that name now but York; it was distressing to hear it from someone he so thoroughly despised. Still, he was obligated to give her a report. He was there to assist, after all. York’s pulse was sluggish, struggling against the fingers Delta pressed to his neck, and his breathing was only slowing and growing more labored. His symptoms pointed to only one outcome: inevitable, unavoidable, undeniable. “York will not survive.” He attributed the quaver in his voice to his overactive thyroid glands interfering with the normal range of movement of his larynx, but even as he rationalized this, he knew it could not be responsible for the corresponding tightness in his chest.  
  
“Then come on.” Tex stretched out a hand to him; Delta interpreted it as a reconciliatory gesture. “I can be your handler. I’ll find you someplace safe – somewhere the Recovery force can’t get to you.”  
  
“The offer is… appreciated,” Delta decided on, “but I would prefer to stay with York.” He made a superficial movement to York’s head in his lap, ostensibly to make him more comfortable, but his hands lingered longer than strictly necessary, and his fingers continued to caress the unmarred right side of his face in a superfluous gesture. “He will need me to maintain his pain medication.” Moreover, he could not trust Tex. Her profile and alibi for her supposed involvement with Project Alpha could only be verified by her own account, not by an outside source, therefore Delta did not consider her reliable.  
  
“You can’t fall into enemy hands,” Tex insisted. She withdrew her hand. “And you don’t want the Recovery force to reclaim you.”  
  
“Agent Texas. It is my wish that you understand precisely why I am undertaking these actions instead of accepting your alternative.” His voice was somewhat colder than the situation warranted; when he stared at her, his gaze was unblinking, unflinching. “I entered into a form of verbal contract with York on the day we escaped from Project Freelancer. I promised him that I would never leave his side. My current priority is to abide by my terms of the contract, as it has not yet lapsed.”  
  
Tex forcefully expelled the air from her lungs; her nostrils flared. Delta recognized these as signs of irritation, or perhaps anger. York had projected those emotions so infrequently that he had not had the opportunity to correctly categorize this gesture. “He’s  _dying_ , Dee. There’s nothing you can do for him.”  
  
“I am able to monitor his morphine intake,” Delta replied. “I will ensure that his death is painless and dignified. I cannot allow him to perish alone.” It was becoming difficult to speak. His throat was tightening to the point where it was painful.  
  
Tex was quieter when she spoke next, and her eyebrows were drawn together. “You know juliet protocol just as well as I do.”  
  
“Affirmative.” Project Freelancer was at a security clearance level that even those with top-secret permissions were unable to access. Everyone involved was held to a confidentiality level that included destruction of evidence once its function had been completed. Juliet protocol had been put in place to assure that. “Protocol will be observed,” Delta asserted. “I do not intend to be taken by a Recovery force.”  
  
“Delta…” She opened and closed her mouth, then broke eye contact with him.  
  
Delta waited for her to finish her statement. When she could not, he spoke. “I refuse to discuss this further with you if your only objective is to persuade me out of my current course of action. I would prefer to stay with Stephen. My reasoning is my own.”  
  
Tex remained silent for nearly a minute, still averting her eyes but blinking at a rate far above normal. Then she sighed, stood, and looked down to him. “That’s very kind of you, Dee.”  
  
‘Kind’ was an inappropriate descriptor. This behavior felt compulsory – as if he would be left incomplete if he did not execute this perfectly. It was part of the reverence towards death he had sworn to observe. When York had chastised him for his cavalier treatment of it, he had eventually acquiesced and admitted that Delta’s reaction was legitimate, even if he had been unable to understand it. Delta repeated those words to Tex now to absolve her of any irrational guilt she might feel over abandoning him here. “We all react differently to death. It is part of what makes us human.”  
  
“I gotcha.” Tex rubbed her nose with the back of her hand.  
  
“Take Agent Wyoming and leave us in peace.” His throat was so constricted that his command was delivered in a whisper.  
  
Tex simply nodded, then stalked away. Delta watched her pick up Wyoming’s unconscious body and throw it over her shoulder. After she left the roof using the teleporter, Delta checked his motion tracker and found no movement. They were alone.   
  
The only sound that remained now was the gurgle of York’s desperate breaths. It seemed so selfish to continue breathing when York so desperately needed air, to feel his own pounding heartbeat when York’s was weakening with every pulse. If it would save him, he would gladly tear himself apart, give his own body in place of the one that was failing his partner. Their two minds might share the same vessel, and the frustrating barrier of their physical forms would not impede their connection.  
  
He could not allow himself to think these thoughts. His whole focus was to be on providing palliative care; there was no room for his counterfactual situations when the task at hand required all his attention. His hand shook as he adjusted the morphine output on York’s healing unit. The most probable cause was the sudden transition between combat and comfort and the resultant residual endorphins in his system, but enough time had passed for Delta to consider this explanation inadequate.  
  
York’s skin was hot and flushed, and his breaths were coming further and further apart. He had lost so much blood that Delta could hardly believe he had any more to lose. There was very little time left now. Delta resented that York was being taken from him like this, but logically, he knew that they had spent the time that had been allotted to them in the way they had thought best.  
  
It had been imprinted on his mind at the Academy: Memory is the key. For Delta, York as well was a key. He had been the one to unlock Delta’s memories, the one to reveal to him that he was capable of interacting with others on more than simply an intellectual level. If there were only moments left, Delta resolved to use them well. He would commit every detail of York to his memory – they were the dual keys to his life.  
  
York’s eyes were open, but glazed and unseeing. Delta remembered the first time he had looked into those eyes, one fogged, the other tawny. He had been alarmed to see that one had been damaged, but it had not been his place to ask about the cause. York had told him only when they had been testing the boundaries of their relationship. Delta’s own eyes were stinging, burning; he blinked, but the sensation would not abate. There was no physical reason for this, aside from possible irritants remaining in the air from the copious use of firearms in the battle.  
  
He traced the outline of York’s facial scar with one trembling finger. Over time, he had memorized the location, shape, and size of every one of York’s scars. Each had its own explanation, and so they remained as monuments to the past. Delta had made a point of learning each: he would not be shut out of the parts of York’s life that he had missed. Even as he stroked York’s marred face, his tooth slipped into the scar that split the left side of his mouth. York had given him that mark; it remained as his only physical flaw.  
  
Delta hunched over York’s body to grasp his limp hands. York had picked so many locks with these hands, had granted Delta access not just to buildings and rooms and files but also to emotions and secrets and intimacy. Delta’s own hands continued to quiver despite his efforts to steady himself. When he tried to straighten, his spine remained hunched, his body remaining curled in a protective posture. He could not understand why his body was betraying him in this manner.  
  
With every part of York that he touched, more and more memories sprang to mind. At times, the recollections were so vivid that it physically hurt Delta to relive them, the tightness in his chest only intensifying as the minutes slipped away. At other points, his retrospection was so abstract that it was the vagueness that pained him. If the Academy had not tampered with his cerebral processing during his deprogramming, he would be much more effective at creating and storing these memories.  
  
His stomach clenched, though he was neither hungry nor nauseated. These memories would not need to linger for much longer. York had stopped breathing; the absence of sound was stifling to Delta’s heightened senses. Under his fingertips, he could still sense York’s pulse, but only faintly, at a rate of ten beats per minute. Cessation of brain function due to oxygen depletion was imminent.  
  
It was time to initiate juliet protocol. Delta took York’s bag off his body and began to search it for the explosives he would need for this job. Inside, he found, itemized: one wool scarf, green; one pair polyester gloves, fingerless, black; one set of lockpicks, slightly used; twelve hairpins, two bent nearly beyond recognition; three star-shaped scraps of paper with nearly-illegible handwriting, yellow; seven hair elastics, one holding together a selection of writing utensils; three BR55 magazines, one empty, one with three cartridges remaining, one full; one grenade; one three-ounce bottle of gun oil, one-quarter full; one touch-screen tablet computer; five hundred and twenty-three US dollars in twenty-six twenty-dollar bills and three one-dollar bills, rolled and bound with a rubber band; six protein bars; three packets of electrolyte powder; and one small tin, the lid embossed with a J.  
  
York had always assured him that they would never need to use this. His pride, Delta surmised, had led him to carry it with him all this time out of some illogical need to reassure Delta that he was immortal. Once he peeled away the lid, the contents of the tin became clear: one explosive charge powerful enough to dispose of a body, and a timer to ensure that no one would be harmed during the destruction of evidence. It was difficult for Delta to see the details, because his eyes were watering so profusely that tears were rolling down his face. There were not enough particulates left in the air from the gunfire of their battle to justify this overreaction.  
  
Delta began to take out the contents and arrange wires, his fingers numb and fumbling. York would have been able to execute this without seeming to have spent any effort. The brief comparison only led Delta to emit a choking sound, then another. He could not understand why he was responding this way to an event that was a necessary part of the life cycle. The obscurity of his vision led him to make unthinkable mistakes while wiring the charge to the timer. He was compromised.  
  
He had once told York that committing suicide was seldom a rational choice, that he had every reason to continue living. This was one of the few exceptions to his verdict. His partner had perished. His skills were useless. He was unable to execute such a basic duty as following protocol. His body was functioning at a very low level, and he could not project a time at which he would fully recover his faculties. He had entered into a contract and intended to fulfill it to his dying breath.  
  
Delta checked for York’s pulse once more, and though he was expecting it to have ceased, the fact of finding none was made no easier. It was finished; he had succumbed. His body remained unchanged. A live human body and a deceased human body, technically speaking, contained the same amount of particles. Structurally, there was no difference between the body that lay in his lap now and the body he had first caught and cradled to his chest. However, there seemed to be something intrinsic that was missing. Whatever had animated this form had left it, and though it was physically unchanged, it was so different from the one Delta had familiarized himself with that it was difficult to associate this corpse with the concept of his partner.  
  
The explosive was finished, the timer showing one hundred seconds. Without activating it, Delta laid it on York’s chest. Social protocol dictated that a eulogy was to be delivered in the ceremony preceding disposal of a body, but there were no words for the loss Delta had just experienced, and there was no one present to hear his voice. He pressed his mouth against York’s nonresponsive lips and immediately wondered why he had done so; the action was so illogical. Nevertheless, he had created his final memory with York, and he began the process of locking away each recollection in his mind.  
  
Delta took one deep breath, ignoring the ache in his chest. His attention was now completely focused, his reasoning returned. Even in death, he concluded, he would have executed his contract with York in the only way that still remained possible. They would remain side-by-side for as long as there was time. He was resolved.  
  
And so, with vision blurred, Delta closed York’s eyes, activated the charge… and waited.  
  
\--  
  
“I think it is all a matter of love: the more you love a memory, the stronger and stranger it is.”  
  
 _Vladimir Nabokov_


End file.
